BY ELYSE CRYSTALL In my circle of family and friends in Brooklyn, the word chutzpah could indicate admiration for someone who asserted herself, spoke truth to power in spite of what others thought: “She had the chutzpah to challenge the senator’s policy on Medicaid expansion.” More often, however, chutzpah expressed disgust at a person who…
BY HUEY-LI LI In the middle of World War II, the AAUP published its oft-quoted 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure in order to “promote public understanding and support of academic freedom and tenure and agreement upon procedures to ensure them in colleges and universities.” In response to the outbreak of the…
BY STEVEN LUBET Best known as an essayist and short-story writer, and former editor of The American Scholar, Joseph Epstein retired in 2002 after 30 years in the English Department at Northwestern University. As an emeritus lecturer, however, he still receives university announcements, which recently led him to complain about a decline in teaching standards.…
BY ERNST BENJAMIN Just as Kenneth S. Stern was completing his new book, The Conflict over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate, he discovered that President Trump had signed an executive order adopting the “working definition of anti-semitism” and making it applicable to enforcement of the Civil Rights Act Title VI. Stern warns that the…
BY DON ERON The following essay was posted on Sept. 8 at the Daily Camera, the Boulder, Colorado newspaper, and is reposted with permission. Academic freedom has had a rough go of it lately at the University of Colorado Boulder. Nobody seems to like it. Chancellor Phil DiStefano finds it necessary but disagreeable, at least…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The forum, sponsored by the SaveOhioHigherEd coalition of AAUP chapters across several Midwestern states, included six presentations: Jill Galvin, an English Professor at Ohio State University, made the “Introduction.” Cathy Wagner, an English professor at Miami University, provided an “Overview.” Abby Stidham, a student at the University of Cincinnati, spoke on…
BY DAVE CRAWFORD With permission of the author, we share below the text of a message he sent to members of his AAUP chapter, the Fairfield University Faculty Welfare Committee / AAUP, on Labor Day. As most of us know, “Labor Day . . . constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have…
BY ANTHEA BUTLER AND KEVIN GANNON Since 2014, scholars’ summers have been filled with the news of African Americans dying at the hands of police. Eric Garner. Mike Brown. Sandra Bland. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. George Floyd. Jacob Blake. But as we well know, African American deaths by police know no season, no break. Laquan…
BY MARYBETH GASMAN An English professor at Iowa State University threatened to discipline students who submit papers opposing abortion, the Black Lives Matter movement, or same-sex marriage. In response, administrators at Iowa State University required the professor to change the syllabus and issued a statement to media outlets: The syllabus statement as written was inconsistent…