Bari Weiss and Coward Culture

BY JOHN K. WILSON Bari Weiss is a coward. That claim may seem incredible to those who have read the fulsome praise from conservatives about Weiss’ decision last week to quit her job as an op-ed editor and writer at the New York Times, and her open resignation letter. Newt Gingrich tweeted, “Bari Weiss’s Letter…

Scrabble tiles spelling out the word "assess"

Colleges Should Offer a Pass-Fail Option This Fall

BY KIMBERLY BERNHARDT Like many of my colleagues across the country, I am unsure whether I will be teaching face-to-face, online, or hybrid courses this fall. While I hope to adapt my teaching to whatever model is necessary to serve students, I am not confident that our current pedagogical framework—in which students work throughout the…

Empty classroom

Vanessa Guillen and the Ghosts of Sanctuary Campus: On the Schoeller Affair, Campus Protest and ‘Free Speech’

BY RACHEL IDA BUFF Last week, University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee students organized a Peaceful Protest Against Professor Betsey Schoeller. On a warm summer evening, the event drew about 250 people, most of them young, many of them people of color. Most wore masks and stood in small clusters around Spaights Plaza, a gathering place in the…

DHS logo

AAUP Statement on July 6 DHS Ruling on International Students

BY THE AAUP The AAUP issued the following statement today: The Department of Homeland Security’s July 6 ruling regarding international students and the upcoming 2020–21 academic year is but the latest example of the Trump administration’s callous cruelty, especially toward immigrants and those it deems “other.” The American Association of University Professors thus joins many…

Coronavirus

Doubletalk on Top of Doubletalk

BY MARTIN KICH During the lengthy contract impasse that led up to our three-week strike in winter of 2019, our administration made many draconian proposals. That their proposed gutting of the retrenchment article of our contract was the most draconian is evidenced by their removing that one article from the contract that they imposed, provoking…

Coronavirus

Putting the Scope of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Perspective

BY MARTIN KICH Despite the considerable efforts to personalize the toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, the politicization of the pandemic has resulted in endless arguments over what all sorts of moving numbers mean. I think that putting the current numbers in some broader perspective could help to show why much of the other noise about…