BY KIMBERLY HARDING Spring 2020 was the unanticipated semester. Few thought in January 2020 that we would be teaching remotely by the end of March. Even then, hope existed that Fall 2020 would emerge as a more “normal” semester. This hope has since been put to rest for most institutions of higher learning. During this…
BY THE NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP The National Coalition Against Censorship today sent this letter, co-signed by the AAUP, to Zoom, Facebook, and Youtube regarding the censorship of an event at San Francisco State University. October 8, 2020 Dear Mr. Yuan, Mr. Zuckerberg, and Ms. Wojcicki: As organizations dedicated to protecting freedom of expression, the…
BY SOCIOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION PRESIDENTS The following letter was sent on September 30 by presidents of sociological organizations to express concern about threatened consequences for two sociology professors who participated in September 8 and 9 #Scholarstrike activities. It was initially signed by twelve presidents, and an additional president signed on later. TO: President Michael K. Young…
BY DISARM PSU At Portland State University, students, faculty, staff, and our broader community have been engaged in seven years of organizing, protesting, and collaborating under an umbrella coalition called “Disarm PSU” since the 2014 decision by PSU to transform its Campus Public Safety Office (CPSO) into a sworn and armed police force. While many…
BY THE CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY HISTORY DEPARTMENT Responding to President Donald Trump’s September 17 attack on history that is not “patriotic”, and in particular, the “1619” feature in the New York Times, the Chapman University History Department decided to go public with their reply, posting it to The Panther, the university’s student newspaper. Under the heading,…
BY NAN ENSTAD Nearly every day there is bad news about draconian cuts to a college or a university system as the economic emergency prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic compounds decades of crisis in higher education in the United States. We can expect such cuts to continue and worsen unless we change course in how…
BY JACK C. LANE Rollins College’s embrace of AAUP principles and subsequent removal from the AAUP’s list of censured institutions in 1939 brought an end to a crisis at the college that had begun in 1933 with the dismissal of Professor John Rice and eleven other faculty members, an episode discussed in my article for…
BY ROBERT A. SCOTT Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic this past spring prompted the rapid turn to remote teaching and learning; caused uncertainty about whether teaching and learning would continue in the remote mode this fall; resulted in dire enrollment forecasts for domestic and international students; and raised questions about what plans should be made…
BY WAVY THE BEAR Hi! I’m Wavy the Bear, senior stuffed brand ambassador at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn! The nice folks at the AAUP liked the story about “managerial techniques” and “academic freedom” that I sent them for their journal, so now I’m “blogging”! Can I get a “wow”?!? I wrote that story back…