Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida

BY HANK REICHMAN On Monday, February 26, I’ll be talking about the AAUP’s recent special investigation report, “Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System,” online with John A. Douglass of the UC Berkeley Center for Studies in Higher Education.  Here’s the Center’s description of the event: In their self-proclaimed “war on…

Boris Kagarlitsky Sentenced to Five Years

BY HANK REICHMAN I’m a historian of Russia by training, but I guess I didn’t realize that there’s apparently no double jeopardy rule, at least with respect to sentencing, in Russia.  Turns out that I—and many others—celebrated too soon when back in December we learned of the release of renowned Marxist sociologist and university professor…

From Florida to Barnard

BY HANK REICHMAN Today the New York Times published an article recounting the continuing struggle at Barnard College, the women’s college of Columbia University in New York, over the academic freedom and free speech rights of faculty and students.  To briefly summarize, three weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the Department of…

What Is a University President to Do?

BY HANK REICHMAN Last week the AAUP released a special investigative report, “Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System.”  In interview after interview with faculty members in Florida, the investigating committee, which I co-chaired, “heard repeated complaints not only about the silence of their campus and system administrators but also about…

Boris Kagarlitsky is Free!

BY HANK REICHMAN Sociologist, antiwar activist, and internationally renowned Marxist thinker Boris Kagarlitsky, a professor at the Moscow Higher School of Economics and head of the Moscow think tank The Institute for Globalization Studies and Social Movements, has been released after paying a fine of 600,000 rubles ($6,600) for “justifying terrorism” in comments he made…

Another College Murdered

BY HANK REICHMAN On Thursday, the Board of Trustees of the College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., voted to close the school at the end of the current academic year.  Saint Rose President Marcia White confirmed the decision in a letter to the campus community.   Between 500 and 600 college employees will lose their…

Maybe Book-Banning Isn’t So Popular After All

BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday’s election results in Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and elsewhere have boosted the spirits of Democrats and progressives.  One of the less widely publicized results, however, has been the stunning rebuke suffered by book-banners and transphobes like Moms for Liberty in school board elections in Iowa and elsewhere.  In the past, Iowa school…

Photo of Woodburn Hall at West Virginia University.

Is There Still Time for WVU?

BY HANK REICHMAN As higher education reels from continuing assaults on academic freedom, tenure, shared governance and education itself in states like Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, we now face the possibility that another state’s major flagship institution may soon exist only as a shadow of its former self, the victim of a…

black chalkboard with the word RACISM and a red eraser beginning to erase the lower right corner of the letter M

A Tale of High School Racism

BY HANK REICHMAN Last month the New York Times Magazine published an article, “The Instagram Account That Shattered a California High School,” by journalist Dashka Slater. It recounted the troubling tale of a racist Instagram account, created by a California high school student and followed by just thirteen of his fellow students, all white and…

Russian College Ends Liberal Arts Program

BY HANK REICHMAN A bit over two years ago I posted to this blog a piece about a decision by Russia’s prosecutor general to designate New York’s Bard College as an “undesirable organization.” Since 1997, Bard had been collaborating with St. Petersburg State University, offering a program of open enrollment liberal arts courses for students…