BY HANK REICHMAN In a stunning development that the Faculty Association for the California Community Colleges called a “major win” for the state’s community college faculty, the California Federation of Teachers (CFT) yesterday announced that it had settled its lawsuit against the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC), the embattled agency that accredits…
The following statement was issued by Henry Reichman, first vice president of the American Association of University Professors, in response to news that the Justice Department will redirect resources to investigating and potentially litigating affirmative action cases in college admissions. “The American Association of University Professors is deeply troubled by yesterday’s announcement that the US…
BY HANK REICHMAN Rejecting the recommendations of its Chapel Hill campus chancellor, over 600 law school faculty and administrators, and numerous North Carolinians demonstrating outside, the Educational Planning, Policies and Programs Committee of the University of North Carolina (UNC) Board of Governors voted 5-1, with one abstention, August 1 to bar the UNC Chapel Hill…
BY HANK REICHMAN Although, in a victory for academic freedom, the administration of Trinity College acknowledged last month that Professor Johnny Williams’s controversial social media posts “were protected by academic freedom and did not violate Trinity College policies,” a July 31 message to the campus from President Joanne Berger-Sweeney suggests that the school’s administrators still…
BY HANK REICHMAN On July 1, Georgia’s new “campus carry” law went into effect. The law, similar to legislation recently enacted in other states,most notably Texas, allows weapons permit holders to carry firearms on campus except at a sporting venue or in a student dormitory. On July 25, a Kennesaw State University student was robbed…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Tomorrow, August 1, the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina (UNC) will consider a proposal to bar the university’s centers and institutes from participating in litigation. The proposal exempts legal clinics, which makes clear that it is really aimed at the activities of one center only: the Chapel…
BY HANK REICHMAN Thomas Haskell, Samuel G. McCann Professor Emeritus of History at Rice University, passed away on July 12 at the age of 78. Professor Haskell was a member of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure from 1993 to 1996. Among his many publications, he is perhaps best known for two…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN It was a tale of two speeches. Yesterday, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos addressed the right-wing American Legislative Executive Council (ALEC) meeting in Denver, where she accused teacher unions of being “defenders of the status quo” who care only about “school systems” and not about individual children. Just hours earlier Randi…
BY HANK REICHMAN In the year since the attempted coup in Turkey, a “staggering” number of academics have faced criminal investigations, detentions, prosecutions, mass dismissal, expulsion and restrictions on travel, according to an open letter to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey, signed by Robert Quinn, executive director of Scholars at Risk (SAR), the New…
BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier today Martin Kich posted a piece on legislation being considered in Congress that, according to an account by Glen Greenwald, “would make it a felony for Americans to support the international boycott against Israel.” While I think this legislation is unnecessary, ill-advised and frustratingly vague, I am skeptical that it is, as Marty argues,…