The Liberty Way of Censorship

It used to be that a Republican presidential candidate speaking at Liberty University was controversial because of the institution’s repressive, far-right-wing politics. Now, the controversy goes the other way. Mitt Romney is being attacked by students at Liberty University because he has been invited to be this year’s commencement speaker. That’s controversial because Romney is…

Troubling Developments at Appalachian State

The following is a guest post by Michael DeCesare, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Merrimack College. “Tenured Professor Is Placed on Leave After Showing a Film About Pornography” was one of the headlines screeching across the April 20 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. The case…

Distorting the AAUP’s History

On the blog of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), its longtime president Anne Neal writes about the election of Rudy Fichtenbaum as the new president of the AAUP. Her alarmist rhetoric not only distorts what the AAUP does today, but fundamentally rewrites the history of the AAUP in a completely misleading way.…

Is Academic Freedom for Sale in Michigan?

Before departing for their two week break, Michigan’s House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education issued a group of policy recommendations tied to new funding. One recommendation in particular, tries to force public universities to sell their academic freedom or risk losing new state money. Section 273a threatens the state appropriations of any Michigan public university…

The Truth about Tenure

The AAUP today released an important new report on the violation of faculty rights at two Louisiana public universities, Northwestern State University and Southeastern Louisiana University (pdf of full report). AAUP Associate General Secretary Jordan Kurland called it, “the worst situation the AAUP has encountered of using cutbacks in funding as an opportunity to select unwanted…

What Tenure Means to Me

By annetteboardman (annetteboardman is a pseudonym of a college professor who teaches at a university in Missouri). This essay originally appeared on DailyKos. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to work anymore, that I have permission to never update a class, or get grading done in a timely manner.  Perhaps you thought it meant…

Chicago State: The Worst Speech Code, Ever

UPDATE: Yesterday, Chicago State reversed course and eliminated this policy. On March 22, Chicago State University’s Office of Marketing & Communication announced a new Communications and Media Relations Policy that may be the most repressive speech code ever enacted at a university. Taken literally, it appears to ban all faculty communications, anywhere. AAUP president Cary…