BY HANK REICHMAN On December 5, the University of Mississippi Faculty Senate unanimously passed a resolution to reaffirm the university’s commitment to academic freedom. The move came in response to growing concerns about the commitment of the administration and the chancellor to the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, formulated jointly by…
BY HANK REICHMAN According to a report by Bloomberg News, U.S. outstanding student loan debt reached a record $1.465 trillion last month, more than double the $675 billion outstanding in June 2009. “The Bloomberg analysis found that loans issued about six years ago have the highest cumulative loss percentage compared to any other year since…
BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the text of a statement released yesterday by the Canadian Association of University Teachers. The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) is giving a failing grade to a free speech policy developed by Ontario’s colleges without any consultation with faculty. “The colleges’ so-called free speech statement is a classic…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last week I posted a piece on this blog reporting on a legal challenge filed by the Arkansas Times against a state law requiring government contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel. Now a similar law is being challenged in Texas by a children’s speech pathologist who has worked for the last…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday the welcome news arrived that scandal-ridden Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke would, as previously hinted, be departing his post by year’s end. The announcement came just days after release of a scathing 38-page report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Science under Siege at the Department of the Interior (DOI), which…
BY HANK REICHMAN Amidst all the bashing of professors as left-wing ideological thugs (but also sensitive “snowflakes”) who seek only to indoctrinate vulnerable students, the reality that the great majority of faculty members go out of their way to advise, mentor, and assist their students, regardless of politics or personal characteristics, frequently without remuneration for…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday the company that owns and publishes the Arkansas Times filed suit in federal court challenging the constitutionality of a state law requiring government contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel or reduce their fees by at least 20 percent. The Times initiated the suit after the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College,…
BY HANK REICHMAN Two faculty members dismissed from their positions in apparent violation of their academic freedom have won restitution. A professor in Kentucky, who had criticized the governor’s Medicaid plan, won a substantial financial settlement and a return to his university, while a California community college professor fired for challenging student beliefs about sexuality…
BY HANK REICHMAN On September 6, 2018, the student newspaper at the University of North Alabama (UNA), The Flor-Ala, reported that the school’s administration had improperly withheld public documents about the resignation of the vice president of student affairs. A week later, the student journalists, members of the communications department, and The Flor-Ala media adviser…
BY HANK REICHMAN A little more than a year ago the AAUP released a report, “National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom,” prepared by a subcommittee of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The report documented “the Trump administration’s alarming hostility to science” in international scientific exchange and the field of climate…