Abhi Sharma from India [CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

The Humanities: At Dusk or Dawn?

BY AARON BARLOW Oh, the fear of losing relevance! Responding to a Chronicle Review collection of essays on the demise of traditional studies in English called Endgame, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, in “The Academic Apocalypse: The crisis of English departments is also a crisis of faith” (01/11/20), expresses the worries of some: [O]ur…

Violent Assault on Indian University: Eyewitness Report

BY JAYATI GHOSH Jayati Ghosh, one of the world’s leading development economists, is professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and executive secretary of International Development Economics Associates (Ideas). She is co-recipient of the International Labour Organisation’s 2010 Decent Work Research prize.  For some U.S. press coverage of these events go here, here…

The Right has Weaponized Free Speech

BY JOAN WALLACH SCOTT Joan Wallach Scott is Professor Emerita of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study and a member of AAUP Committee A.  These remarks were delivered at a panel on “Academic Freedom and the Historical Profession” at the annual conference of the American Historical Association in New York on January 6. …

Adjunct Fired for a Bad Joke

BY HANK REICHMAN In my October Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture at the University of Michigan I argued that “the gravest challenge to academic freedom, one that exacerbates all others, [is] the steady erosion of the tenure system and the concomitant and explosive expansion of contingent, frequently part-time faculty employment,” what some have labeled “adjunctification.”  Part-time…

In Defense of Knowledge

BY HANK REICHMAN Today the AAUP released a statement, In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education, prepared by the association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure in October and approved by the AAUP Council a month later.  An email signed by me was sent to all AAUP members announcing the release this morning.  The…

A Better Way to Remember the Titans

BY STEVEN LUBET It was inevitable that the film “Remember the Titans” would be mentioned in the headlines of Herman Boone’s obituaries. He was the real-life African American football coach of a real-life integrated high school team in Alexandria, Virginia, that won the real-life 1971 state championship, and he passed away last month at age…

UW System Needs a Qualified President

BY ERIC SANDGREN The following was published as an op-ed column on December 27 in the Wisconsin State Journal and is reposted with permission.  The original column may be found here.  Eric Sandgren is Professor of Experimental Pathology at UW Madison and vice-president of the Wisconsin state conference of the AAUP. The next University of…