Light blue neon sign over dark background shows the word UNION on top with the word YES and a check mark inside a red box below it.

Faculty Unions in Colorado Are Already Here

BY JONATHAN REES Back in the 1990s, I studied labor history at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Naturally, I belonged to the Teaching Assistants’ Association, the first graduate student union in the country. When I arrived in Colorado as a tenure-track academic, I naturally wanted to know if I could somehow duplicate my positive…

Mural painted on an electrical box shows a snarling tiger on a blue background surrounded by colorful orange and pink designs

On Meme Culture Today

BY AMIR HUSSAIN Critics and educators may plausibly perceive social media as preferring and promulgating fragmentary thinking, consumerist scrolling, and buzzwords over the attention to nuance and context that is cultivated in university settings. But the emergence of this arena nonetheless needs to be seen as relevant—even vital—for considering the intellectual and political landscape of…

Podcast: Understanding Academic Freedom Interview

BY HANK REICHMAN James Vernon, the Helen Fawcett Distinguished Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley and former co-chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association, is also leading Berkeley’s recently launched Global Democracy Commons project.  I was honored that James invited me to interview for the first installment of the program’s new monthly…

Assault on Academic Freedom at UC Irvine

BY EILEEN BORIS This post is part of a blog series, organized by Annelise Orleck, that will focus on recent crackdowns on protests at US college and university campuses against Israel’s war on Gaza. You can read the first post and an introduction to the series here. In yet another assault on academic freedom, civil…

Drummers and flag-bearers in Nazi-style uniforms stand on a stage in front of banners mixing US and Nazi symbolism, including stars, stripes, and swastikas, with a portrait of George Washington at the center.

Trump, American Nazis, and a Night at the Garden

BY JEFFREY C. ISAAC This week Donald Trump held a campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City, promoting the themes of “Make America Great Again,” “America First,” and, of course, “The Greatness of Trump.” According to a New York Times headline, it was “A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny, and Racism.” Stephen…

A hand putting a ballot in box

2024 Endorsement from Higher Education

BY MATTHEW BOEDY With organizational help from Washington Post humor columnist Alexandria Petri’s recent piece on presidential endorsements . . . The Washington Post, among other major newspapers, is not endorsing presidential candidates this year.   And major universities are stepping back from issuing statements on matters of public concern. Since the latter institutions are choosing…

Members of the Faculty Alliance of Miami (FAM, AAUP-AFT) march at the Rally for Raises on September 20, 2024.

Post-Tenure Review as a Union-Busting Strategy

BY THERESA A. KULBAGA Standing in solidarity with colleagues for better wages and working conditions is what being a union means. It’s no surprise, then, that management’s first union-busting tactic is always to attempt to divide workers and turn us against each other. At Miami University, we voted overwhelmingly to unionize faculty and librarians in…