Long-Serving Former AAUP Staff Member Evelyn Miller Dies at 89

POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Today the AAUP issued the following statement: The AAUP notes with sadness the death of long-serving former staff member Evelyn Miller in May at the age of 89.  The Association’s operations in the areas of academic freedom and tenure received essential support for many decades from Miller, who was a member…

Statement of Solidarity with Professor Dana Cloud

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…

High Court Rules in First Amendment Cases

BY HANK REICHMAN In two free speech decisions with minimal direct relevance to higher education, the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled, first, that the federal government cannot refuse to register trademarks that the government deems offensive on racial, religious or similar ground and, second, that a North Carolina law making it a felony for a…

On Outside Speakers and Academic Freedom, Part II

BY HANK REICHMAN “The speech we must protect most forcefully is not the speech we hate the most, but the speech that is most endangered.” — CUNY Professor of History Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) on Twitter, April 25 “The countless fruitful discussions that happen all the time in college classrooms don’t grab headlines.” — UW Milwaukee…

What John Wilson Gets Wrong About Secret Recording

BY HANK REICHMAN In a recent post to this blog, John K. Wilson took issue with the AAUP’s recommendation “that administrations and elected faculty bodies work jointly to establish institutional regulations that prohibit the surreptitious recording of classroom discourse or of private meetings between students and faculty members.”  The recommendation came in the context of…