POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Last week the AAUP filed an amicus brief supporting a challenge to a statute and policy in Texas that compel faculty to permit concealed handguns in college classrooms. The brief in Glass v. Paxton, filed jointly with the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The AAUP and a large coalition of other higher education groups have issued an open letter calling on legislators to protect the graduate student tuition waiver and the students it benefits. The AAUP previously called on its members and those who support higher education to “Vote No on the Tax Bill”…
BY HANK REICHMAN There’s much to be troubled by in the Republican tax “reform” proposals under consideration in the House and Senate. Both plans favor inherited wealth over income earned through labor; favor “red states” over “blue states,” and taken together generally amount to what Paul Krugman calls generational class warfare. But as a lifelong…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN On January 31, the AAUP issued a statement on “Targeted Online Harassment of Faculty,” which decried how a growing number of faculty members nationwide “have been subject to threats of physical violence, including sexual assault, through hundreds of e-mails, calls, and social media postings” in response to viewpoints expressed on electronic…
BY HANK REICHMAN A little less than a year ago, in the wake of the 2016 election, I posted to this blog “A Playlist for the Trump Presidency,” a collection of 30 songs/videos of political relevance. It generated considerable traffic. In February I followed up with “Another Trump Playlist,” with 40 songs/videos, but that post…
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,…