black and white photo of two men at an AAUP Committee A meeting in 1972

Remembering William Van Alstyne

BY DAVID M. RABBAN William Van Alstyne, for decades a major leader in the AAUP and a preeminent scholar of constitutional law, died on January 29, 2019, at the age of eighty-four. He joined the AAUP in 1960, at the beginning of his career as a law professor, and twice served as president of the…

High Court Rules in First Amendment Cases

BY HANK REICHMAN In two free speech decisions with minimal direct relevance to higher education, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled, first, that the federal government cannot refuse to register trademarks that the government deems offensive on racial, religious or similar ground and, second, that a North Carolina law making it a felony for a…

Free Speech Vigilance

This is a guest post by Tim Shiell, a contributor to the newest issue of the Journal of Academic Freedom. Shiell is a Professor of Philosophy and founder and Associate Director of the Center for Applied Ethics at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. He primarily teaches ethics courses and researches issues at the intersection of law, ethics and…

Merry Christmas

While I was reading Stanley Fish’s New York Times article “Religious Exemptions and the Liberal State: A Christmas Column” all I could think of was a comment Bill O’Reilly made at the beginning of the month, claiming Christianity as a philosophy, not a religion–and of an experience of mine as a young man. Fish discusses Brian Leiter’s…