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Late to the Party

BY ZOE SHERMAN I tried not to be a professional academic. But I loved being a student so much, and I felt such a strong pull toward scholarship that eventually I overcame my qualms about getting my livelihood tangled up with my intellectual passions. In the fall of 2009, at the age of thirty, with…

Large group of people walk through a narrow New York City street with tall buildings on either side, holding signs with messages such as "HIGHER EDUCATION IS A PURSUIT OF CRITICAL THOUGHT NOT ASSIMILATION" and "STUDENTS ARE TO BE CHERISHED NOT CRIMINALIZED"

When the Federal Government Denies Constitutional Rights

BY ALAN SINGER On Thursday, April 17, I marched with New York City AAUP chapters and thousands of educators, students, workers, and allies from the arch in Washington Square Park to Foley Square in lower Manhattan in defense of higher education. We rallied to defend the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution…

Information Is the Antidote to Repression

BY ANNA FEDER This blog post will also be published in the Academic Freedom on the Line newsletter, a project of the AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. In August of last year, I was fired from my staff position at Emerson College for screening the documentary film Israelism and for supporting the…

White cinderblock wall shows the words THE BIG LIE stenciled in black with black shadows at the top and bottom of the frame.

It’s Not Too Late to Tell the Truth About Antisemitism on Campus

BY BROOKE LOBER, ELI MEYERHOFF, AND EMILY SCHNEIDER The climate on American university campuses is dangerous. Administrators ban protests for Palestinian rights. Immigration and Customs Enforcement snatches students off the streets. The Trump administration revokes hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for research. And all this is done in the name of protecting Jewish…

Rocky outcropping of reddish stones at Garden of the Gods Park in Colorado Springs, CA, offers a window-like view onto the verdant valley below with a cloudy sky and mountains in the background.

A Report from Colorado’s High Desert

BY RAPHAEL SASSOWER As the national academic landscape makes clear, academic freedom battles are often diverted to or fought in the budgetary arena: Money talks! To ensure that the mission of the university is not overlooked by our administrators, our AAUP chapter has demanded greater transparency in budgetary decision-making processes. Instead, we receive annual notices…

When Inclusion Gets Complicated: What Faculty Need to Know About Service Dogs in Higher Ed

BY ALLISON GAINER As faculty, we often find ourselves balancing pedagogy, policy, and student support. For students with disabilities, that support sometimes includes service dogs. These working animals are not pets or conveniences. They are medically necessary tools for independence, mobility, and safety. And yet, many of us have never been trained to support students…

Nine red pushpins are inserted askew and crowded onto a single date, the 22nd of an unspecified month, on a spiral-hinged calendar that appears in soft focus in the background.

Double Booking Against Higher Education

BY ANTHONY DAVID VERNON What is proper duty? For Chinese philosopher Xunzi, proper duty included “the way of the ritual . . . and return to order.” Double booking breaks rituals and deviates from order. It is problematic for all parties, as we all have what Xunzi refers to as “a sense of duty” or…

Brick walkway on Brown University campus is flanked by lawn, trees, benches, and bike racks with bikes. A stone arch and brick buildings appear in the background.

Letter Calls for Solidarity Against Threats to Funding for Brown

BY DENISE L. DAVIS As we at Brown University wait for the other shoe to drop, we are mobilizing in support of the university’s principles, as expressed by President Christina H. Paxson, and urging the university administration to take an uncompromising stance when it comes to preserving free inquiry, ensuring the safety of non-US citizens…

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Bad Time for Stories

BY AMIR HUSSAIN The Trump administration is trafficking in a grand narrative about American intellectuals: Universities are hiding “foreign aliens,” and outside agitators are disrupting campus operations in support of terrorist organizations. Scholars and students are being labeled as leftist protesters or, more brazenly, as so-called Hamas supporters and are being persecuted, detained, deported, and…

white letter blocks spelling out TRUMP in all caps cast a dark shadow on a white surface below

Faculty Letter Calls for Interuniversity Defense of Higher Education

BY FACULTY LETTER ORGANIZERS The open letter discussed below originated after a group of faculty began to share notes about how their universities were handling the challenges presented by the Trump administration and about the apparent lack of communication or coalition building across institutions. In response to escalating federal attacks on higher education, a national…

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