BY RUDY FICHTENBAUM Melvyn Goldfinger, who was associate professor of neuroscience, cell biology, and physiology at Wright State University, died on September 17 at the age of seventy-four. Mel Goldfinger was a champion for academic freedom, shared governance, and the economic security of the faculty–the three bedrock principles of the AAUP. It was Mel, along…
BY AUDREY TRUSCHKE The following are remarks made at a virtual congressional briefing on “Hindu Supremacists attacks on Academic Freedom,” sponsored by a coalition of eighteen organizations in the United States on September 8, 2021. The remarks have been lightly edited for style and updated with a postscript on a recent academic conference. Hindu nationalism…
BY CATHERINE M. YOUNG Follow the foibles of Claire Park, a Walt Whitman expert and part-time instructor at a small liberal arts college and large public university as she looks ahead to the fall semester and wonders how she will pay her November and December rent if her third class is canceled because not enough…
BY PRANAV JANI 1984 meets Professor Umbridge. That’s what came to my mind when I heard of two bills currently being debated in the Ohio legislature, HB 322 and 327. Seeking to define a category of “divisive concepts” that Ohio children and adult students in college need to be protected from, these bills legitimize the…
BY STEVEN LUBET Big-time college football is back, with all the tradition and pageantry, but the sport may soon face a well-deserved existential reckoning for two reasons—one physical and the other financial. First, parents may no longer allow their children to participate in youth and high school football, where the numbers have been declining for…
BY ELLEN SCHRECKER Every once in a while, when some new threat to civil liberties or violation of academic freedom surfaces, I get a call from a journalist, documentary filmmaker, or fellow academic asking me to compare the current situation to McCarthyism. ”Can it happen again?” “Is what’s happening today as bad as it was…
BY KEVIN MCGRUDER In 2021, the movement against the purported teaching of Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools and public colleges dominated public discussions in many communities and has now resulted in legislation against the teaching of “divisive concepts” in many states. It is a matter of public record, as Jennifer Ruth noted here, that…
BY PETER LAURENCE In May 2021, fifteen South Carolina state representatives introduced a bill into the SC General Assembly to condemn and prevent the teaching of critical race theory. Now with twenty sponsors, H. 4325 resides in the House Committee on Education and Public Works, awaiting further discussion. Expansive in its attack on educators and…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT In response to the growing influence of Hindutva, a Hindu supremacist ideology supported by India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and a growing number of Indians both within and outside that nation, a conference has been organized to analyze and contest the ideology. “Dismantling Global Hindutva” will take place on-line September 10–12.…
BY MARY ELLEN FLANNERY The following is reposted with permission from NEA Today. Mary Ellen Flannery is senior writer at the National Education Association. Fifty years ago, a Florida state legislative committee sought to identify, interrogate, and purge gay schoolteachers and university faculty. With subpoena powers and a network of informants, state legislators used uniformed…