BY HANK REICHMAN It’s a common trope among conservatives and many media commentators that college and university campuses are liberal strongholds where students who hold conservative political views are intimidated from expressing them. In Wisconsin last month this led to adoption of a “Commitment to Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression” policy designed to curtail…
BY HANK REICHMAN In the wake of yet another horrific mass shooting, we are hearing the usual offensive nonsense from political supporters of the NRA: only a “good guy” with a gun can stop a bad guy with one, so everyone should arm themselves. And, of course, there’s the continuing mantra that common sense gun…
BY HANK REICHMAN Members of the New York University (NYU) faculty have begun to speak out more forcefully against religious discrimination and limitations on academic freedom at the university’s United Arab Emirates (UAE) branch campus in Abu Dhabi. Last week a majority of the senior faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute signed a…
BY HANK REICHMAN The University of Wisconsin-Superior announced this week that it will suspend 25 programs, including 9 majors, 15 minors and one graduate program, according to reports by the Duluth News-Tribune and Wisconsin Public Radio. Among the majors affected are sociology, theater, journalism and political science. The university has now suspended 40 programs since…
BY HANK REICHMAN For seventeen years Georgette Fleischer taught first-year English, now first-year Writing, at Barnard College in New York. For most of those years she found Barnard a “wonderful place to work. We felt like our work was appreciated, and that meant a great deal,” she told a reporter in September. That changed, however,…
BY HANK REICHMAN The National Park Service has pulled funding for a Black Panther Party legacy project to be undertaken at the University of California at Berkeley in response to criticism by conservative organizations, according to reports in the San Francisco Chronicle and the East Bay Times. In September, the Park Service announced that it…
BY HANK REICHMAN When the New York Times first announced in April that it was adding former Wall Street Journal conservative writer Bret Stephens to its stable of op-ed columnists — which already included the unctuous moralism of Ross Douthat and the simplistic pseudo-sociology of David Brooks — alarm bells went off. David Roberts on…
BY HANK REICHMAN What is the appropriate response when racists and neo-Nazis like Richard Spencer appear on campus? One approach is, well, simply ignore them, or at the least don’t take them too seriously. Bob Moser in the New Republic praises one questioner at Spencer’s Florida appearance last week for using mockery quite effectively, demanding…
BY HANK REICHMAN Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency; the University of Florida spent a half-million dollars on security; protesters were peaceful, if boisterous; and neo-Nazi nincompoop Richard Spencer managed to speak on the Gainesville campus for nearly two hours and even answered questions from the audience. (At one point CUNY Professor…
BY HANK REICHMAN I have occasionally on this blog posted items about the conflicted views of American conservatives about academic freedom, at times calling attention to the ideas of principled academic conservatives whose approach and arguments often run counter to the unfortunate hostility to higher education now rapidly gaining credibility on the right, and with…