BY HANK REICHMAN The headlines tell the tale: “Trump Policies Push 75% of Scientists to Consider Leaving U.S.;” “More than 1,900 scientists write letter in ‘SOS’ over Trump’s attacks on science.” But it’s less a new story than a continuation of an old one, for the Trump regime’s war on science dates back at least…
BY HANK REICHMAN Today I attended one of the over 275 “Tesla Takedown” demonstrations outside of DOGE Dictator Elon Musk’s dealerships nationwide. This one was on Fourth Street in Berkeley, California, where at its height I would estimate some 800-1000 people gathered to voice our outrage at the ongoing Republican coup. It was a spirited…
BY HANK REICHMAN Given the daily fire hose of mostly unconstitutional (if not simply illegal) assaults by the Trump regime on the rights of immigrants, on “DEI,” on trans people, on the legal profession, on the judiciary, on social security and the Veterans’ Administration, and, of course, of most direct concern to readers of this…
BY HANK REICHMAN I am thrilled to announce that today, March 25, the second edition of my book, Understanding Academic Freedom, is officially published. In the first edition, published in late 2021, I sought to provide educators and others a basic introduction and guide to principles of academic freedom. But by early last year it…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following extraordinary statement was published today in the New York Review of Books and is reposted here with their permission. The statement’s signatories include virtually every leading First Amendment scholar in the country, conservative and liberal. Among the signatories are Eugene Volokh and Michael McConnell, arguably the two most prominent…
BY HANK REICHMAN I subscribe to Don Moynihan’s substack, “Can We Still Govern.” Moynihan is Professor of Public Policy at the Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan. His posts are a terrific guide to how best to understand the administrative impact of the Musk-Trump assault on governance, as well as other related topics…
BY HANK REICHMAN As an alum of Columbia University (CC ’69) I received an email yesterday from the university’s interim president Katrina Armstrong responding to the Trump Administration’s decision to arbitrarily cancel some $400 million in federal grants “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” The email…
BY HANK REICHMAN The recently published Winter issue of Academe, devoted to the theme of “higher education in wartime,” which I guest-edited, includes three articles by Ukrainian scholars. Odesa historian and philosopher Oksana Dovgopolova writes movingly about the impact of the war on her institution. “War creates immense challenges for higher education—there is no way around…
BY HANK REICHMAN This week the AAUP released a statement, “Against Anticipatory Obedience,” prepared by a joint subcommittee of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the Committee on College and University Government. I also served on this subcommittee. The statement noted with concern how “recent events suggest that some administrations are not only…
BY HANK REICHMAN The American Federation of Teachers and its state affiliate, the California Federation of Teachers, have established a disaster relief fund to assist “displaced members and their families—our educators and school staff, pre-K through college, in Southern California.” In an email to members, AFT President Randi Weingarten and CFT President Jeff Freitas wrote,…