BY RUBÉN MARTINEZ Crises in intellectual and religious thought have been opportunities for the reformulation of the basic principles and ideas of existing bodies of knowledge for decades. In the 1920s and 1930s, legal realism raised the specter of the destructive character of accepted theories of law. In the 1960s, Vatican II, the twenty-first Roman…
POSTED BY THE AAUP We are pleased to announce the publication of volume 14 of the AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom. Our call for papers, “Landscapes of Power and Academic Freedom,” invited scholarly articles investigating the links between social power and the historical development and contemporary status of academic freedom. Seeking submissions that would build on…
BY JENNIFER RUTH “Where woke goes to die.” Let’s call this phrase what it is: fascist propaganda. In “The Collapse of Radical Reconstruction,” the first episode of Princeton professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr.’s podcast “History is Us,” Le Moyne College professor Douglas Egerton says, “Reconstruction did not fail. Reconstruction was killed.” What does “where woke…
POSTED BY THE AAUP Volume 14: Landscapes of Power and Academic Freedom The 2023 issue of the Journal of Academic Freedom seeks original articles that investigate the links between landscapes of social power and the historical development and contemporary status of academic freedom. For over a century, the AAUP has defended the profession against attacks…
BY ALAN SINGER Academic freedom is the most sacred tradition in American universities. Academic freedom generally ensures that “both faculty members and students can engage in intellectual debate without fear of censorship or retaliation” and “establishes a faculty member’s right to remain true to his or her pedagogical philosophy and intellectual commitments.” Although K–12 teachers…
BY HARVEY J. GRAFF In my new Journal of Academic Freedom article, “The Nondebate about Critical Race Theory and Our American Moment,” I discuss battles over the past in the context of the US reckoning with truth, reconciliation, collective knowledge, and the pursuit of an inclusive, equitable democracy. These battles at the intersection of past,…
POSTED BY THE AAUP We are pleased to announce the publication of volume 13 of the AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom. Our fall 2021 call for papers, “Memory Laws or Gag Laws? Disinformation Meets Academic Freedom,” invited scholarly responses to the wave of legislation seeking to ban or restrict teaching about race and racism. As…
BY DANYA LEEBAW The years since the 2016 election have prompted reckoning and reflection among academic librarians about the integration of our professional, academic, and civic responsibilities. We are educators focused on information literacy, stewards of research and archival collections, and hosts to essential public and learning spaces on our campuses. In recent years, many…
BY NAN ENSTAD Nearly every day there is bad news about draconian cuts to a college or a university system as the economic emergency prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic compounds decades of crisis in higher education in the United States. We can expect such cuts to continue and worsen unless we change course in how…
BY ROBERT A. SCOTT Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic this past spring prompted the rapid turn to remote teaching and learning; caused uncertainty about whether teaching and learning would continue in the remote mode this fall; resulted in dire enrollment forecasts for domestic and international students; and raised questions about what plans should be made…