BY DAVE CRAWFORD With permission of the author, we share below the text of a message he sent to members of his AAUP chapter, the Fairfield University Faculty Welfare Committee / AAUP, on Labor Day. As most of us know, “Labor Day . . . constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Mary Chappell, editor-in-chief of the Loyola Phoenix (Loyola University of Chicago) has a great editorial this week rejecting attacks from student protesters who objected to being reported on. The student protesters at Loyola argued: As we all know by now, 7 of our friends were arrested while protesting. Some of the…
BY HANK REICHMAN Hans A. Linde, a leading legal scholar who served on the Oregon Supreme Court from 1976 to 1990 and whose writings energized efforts to turn to state constitutions and courts in defense of civil liberties, died on Monday at the age of 96. He was, in the words of Lawrence Tribe, “one…
BY HANK REICHMAN While most attention these days is focused on the presidential and congressional elections, here in California a major battle is shaping up over Proposition 22, an initiative that would repeal a law, Assembly Bill 5, requiring most so-called gig workers to be provided the rights of employees as opposed to being treated…
BY ANTHEA BUTLER AND KEVIN GANNON Since 2014, scholars’ summers have been filled with the news of African Americans dying at the hands of police. Eric Garner. Mike Brown. Sandra Bland. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. George Floyd. Jacob Blake. But as we well know, African American deaths by police know no season, no break. Laquan…
BY JOHN K. WILSON On August 31, Illinois Wesleyan University announced that three tenured faculty would be given one-year terminal contracts and then fired because of controversial plans to discontinue academic programs in anthropology, French, Italian, and religious studies while expanding programs in economics and business. The AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance…
BY MARYBETH GASMAN An English professor at Iowa State University threatened to discipline students who submit papers opposing abortion, the Black Lives Matter movement, or same-sex marriage. In response, administrators at Iowa State University required the professor to change the syllabus and issued a statement to media outlets: The syllabus statement as written was inconsistent…
BY HANK REICHMAN This chart of new coronavirus cases by metropolitan area during the past two weeks comes from the New York Times: Metro or micro area Population Recent cases Per 1,000 1 Ames, Iowa 97,117 964 8.2 2 Iowa City, Iowa 173,105 1,664 7.6 3 Auburn-Opelika, Ala. 164,542 1,430 7.4 4 Muskogee, Okla. 67,997…
BY SUE RAMLO They said they were sorry; they said that it was financial. We were devastated when we got the emails or phone calls about meetings with an administrator concerning our future at the University of Akron (UA)–we were being fired. Our situation made national news because there are nearly one hundred of us…