BY EVA VON DASSOW Guest blogger Eva von Dassow is Associate Professor of Classical and Near Eastern Studies and AAUP Chapter Chair at the University of Minnesota. Since when is demanding that public funds be expended to indulge your wishes a conservative idea? The student group calling itself the Berkeley Patriot and the media company of…
BY TIM McGETTIGAN Tim McGettigan is Professor of Sociology at Colorado State University, Pueblo. It has required nearly four years and humongous legal costs, but I can finally say that I have won my First Amendment battle against Colorado State University. Four years ago, the CSU Board of Governors, former CSU Chancellor Michael Martin and…
BY DAVID MOSHMAN People often use their freedom of speech to disrupt the speech of others, especially on college campuses in recent years. Of course people have a right to protest, provided they are sufficiently quiet, brief, or distant so as not to prevent the speaker from being heard. On August 25, University of Nebraska–Lincoln…
BY AARON NISENSON On September 28, the US Supreme Court announced that it will hear a case, called Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, which anti-union forces have pushed in an attempt to have fair-share fees ruled unconstitutional for public-sector employees. Currently, unions can charge fair share fees (also called “agency fees”) to non-union members for the cost of…
BY HARRY HELLENBRAND Harry Hellenbrand served for many years as provost and interim president at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) following a distinguished career as a faculty member, academic senator, department chair and dean at CSU campuses. The essay below addresses changes in curriculum imposed on the CSU’s 23 campuses and their faculty by the…
BY SUSAN HEGEMAN We’ve had a tumultuous fall in Florida. It began in August, shortly after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA, when Richard Spencer, one of the speakers in Charlottesville, applied for a speaking venue at the University of Florida. UF initially denied his request, citing safety concerns, especially after it…
BY SARANNA THORNTON On September 7, 2017 Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, harshly criticized the “failed system” of policies promulgated in Dear Colleague Letters issued in 2011 and 2014. DeVos rightly noted that some colleges and universities have indelibly harmed survivors when their reports of sexual assault were “swept under the rug”. The Secretary rightly…
BY JONATHAN MARKS Guest blogger Jonathan Marks teaches political philosophy at Ursinus College. John Villasenor, Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute is only the latest commentator to worry aloud about our college young, who don’t understand or value freedom of expression. A survey he conducted contains familiar bad news. A majority of respondents holds…
BY SHERRYL KLEINMAN This week, the Defenders of Civil Rights called on the UNC Law School administration and faculty to make the Center for Civil Rights a clinical project of the law school, to ensure that the community lawyering performed with and for low-wealth communities of color will continue. On Friday, the UNC Board of Governors…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY Activists have been fighting for years for decent working conditions and pay for adjuncts and graduate student instructors. The majority of these activists are adjuncts and graduate students themselves. They have formed collective bargaining units under the auspices of the AAUP and other unions, and they have created organizations such as the…