BY KEVIN HOWLEY For G. K. Professors are anxious and burned out. They’ve been pivoting. They’ve been juggling work and child care. They’ve been worried—about Covid-19, the economy, social justice, the nation’s divisive political climate. —The Chronicle of Higher Education In all of my time as a campus administrator—granted it’s only been three weeks since…
BY ALEX ZUKAS Like many other university administrations across the United States, National University in San Diego, CA, is using the COVID-19 crisis as cover to enact draconian measures, some of which were mentioned on this blog in July 2020. Most recently, the university is requiring faculty to sign a liability waiver to access their…
BY EILEEN BORIS The world awoke, and tartly spoke: “Your work is all the same: Work together or work apart, Work, each of you, with all your heart— Just get into the game!” —Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Socialist and the Suffragist,” Appeal to Reason, September 28, 1912 For decades I’ve found inspiration in this call…
BY NADINE STROSSEN The following is a letter to Columbia University President Lee Bollinger from Nadine Strossen, the John Marshall Harlan II Professor of Law Emerita at New York Law School, Past National President of the American Civil Liberties Union (1991-2008), and author of HATE: Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship. Dear Lee,…
BY KEVIN L. COPE, Treasurer, Louisiana Conference of the AAUP Whether in William Herschel’s telescopic glimpses of stars, Shakespeare’s character Hamlet’s decision to unravel the state of Denmark, or the votes of faculty senates on their legislative measures, resolution tends to occur quickly, within a fleeting instant. Few stopwatches are fast enough to measure that…
BY RICHARD J. REDDICK AND LISA L. MOORE “Have you gotten the shot?” It’s springtime, and those of us in higher education are beginning to cautiously imagine some kind of return to campus later this year. Many are calling not for a return to “normal” but to a revisioning of our habits, assumptions, and structures—many…
BY KIRA T. LAWRENCE As a climate scientist, I’ve watched in disbelief as decades of denial and can-kicking have resulted in the leading edge of the climate crisis wreaking havoc across the world. For years, I have felt like I’ve been aboard the carbon train with the rest of humanity, telling passengers to brace for…
BY GINA TIGRI Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party? This question was famously asked numerous times in the hearings held by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) amid the anti-Communist frenzy known as the Red Scare in the McCarthy era. A new higher education bill was recently…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY When the AAUP made funds available to all state conferences last year, I, as the state president of the Georgia conference, had an idea. This academic year we have had six presidents in our state’s public higher education system, which includes twenty-six institutions, announce that they were leaving. When we received word…
BY GREGORY E. RUTLEDGE The current state of the union—recurring mass shootings, raging white supremacy (manifested in voter disenfranchisement, anti-immigrant hostility, violence against Asian Americans, and efforts to foment a racial civil war), a pandemic, outrageously foxy lying by US senators and representatives, and increasing economic desperation alongside massive wealth gains by billionaires—and the complacency…