Statement on Garrett Felber Case
BY HANK REICHMAN The termination earlier this month of University of Mississippi assistant professor of history Garrett Felber, ostensibly because he declined to communicate orally with his department chair while on leave, has attracted considerable attention, including an open letter to the administration protesting his termination, which has to date attracted over 5,000 signatures. Because…
Another Challenge to Academic Freedom at Collin College
BY HANK REICHMAN Back in October when Lora Burnett, a history professor at Collin College in Texas, was hounded by internet trolls for a comment she made about Vice-President Mike Pence’s appearance during the vice-presidential debate, her administration buckled under the pressure and publicly denounced her, ignoring their own policy’s written commitment “to uphold vigorously…
CUCFA Protests Suspension of Santa Cruz Graduate Student
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the text of a letter sent by the executive board of the Council of University of California Faculty Associations to UC Santa Cruz Chancellor Cynthia K. Larive on December 6. Dear Chancellor Larive, The Council of UC Faculty Associations (CUCFA) rarely intervenes in matters that are not germane…
Response to Julia Reuben
BY HANK REICHMAN No sooner had I posted my piece on Scott Atlas, Stanford, and the Hoover Institution than I received from a colleague a link to an essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education, “Where Academic Freedom Ends,” by Harvard education professor Julia A. Reuben, also prompted, it seems, at least in part by…
Scott Atlas, Stanford, and the Problem of the Hoover Institution
BY HANK REICHMAN On Monday, Stanford University issued the following statement concerning Trump adviser, “herd immunity” advocate, and Hoover Institution fellow Scott Atlas: The university has been asked to comment on recent statements made by Dr. Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution who is on leave of absence from that position. Stanford’s…
CUCFA Welcomes Professor Napolitano to the Zoom Board; Calls on Her to Defend Academic Freedom
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Former homeland security secretary and Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, who earlier this year stepped down as president of the University of California system after seven years and retreated to a faculty position in the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, has joined the Board of Zoom, the company announced…
NYU AAUP Responds to University President About Zoom Censorship
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN On October 28, the AAUP sent a letter, signed by President Irene Mulvey and me, to New York University president Andrew Hamilton urging him to address the academic freedom concerns raised by Zoom’s censorship of an event sponsored by the NYU AAUP and others. On November 6, we received the following…
Complaints About Professor Highlight Differences Between Free Speech and Academic Freedom
BY HANK REICHMAN This past weekend the San Francisco Chronicle carried an article reporting that a white emeritus professor of economics at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) — where I taught for twenty-five years before fully retiring in 2015 — “is teaching racist theories on intelligence. Students and faculty want him out.” A petition…
Collin College Faculty Council Supports Academic Freedom
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Readers of this blog may recall that shortly after the vice-presidential debate history professor Lora Burnett was hounded by trolls for Twitter comments that referred to Vice-President Pence as a “demon” and that her college administration buckled under the pressure to denounce her in a notorious October 12 statement. I blogged…