BY HANK REICHMAN I first learned of the horrible fire that on Friday night destroyed a live-work warehouse in Oakland, California, claiming 36 lives, early the next morning when I turned on my smartphone. A bulletin informed me that nine had already been found dead at an electronic dance music (EDM) “rave” held in the…
BY HANK REICHMAN In the aftermath of the election there has been plenty of discussion, both among academics and in the media, of the role played by “identity” and especially race in the outcome. Mark Lilla’s much and deservedly criticized New York Times op-ed, “The End of Identity Politics,” got things going. Among the more…
BY HANK REICHMAN Back in August, the National Labor Relations Board ruled in the Columbia University case that student employees at private universities have the right to organize unions to bargain collectively over the terms of their employment. Within a week Columbia’s provost, historian John Coatsworth, responded with a letter to the campus community, which…
BY HANK REICHMAN Today, the AAUP, the College Media Association (CMA), the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), and the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) released a report, Threats to the Independence of Student Media, shining a light on threats to student media and faculty and staff advisers. The report reaffirms and expands upon basic principles…
BY HANK REICHMAN Music can be an indispensable solace, inspiration, and fortification. Over the past several weeks I’ve needed all three, and I suspect others have as well. So I’ve put together this playlist to help us through the next four years. Thirty songs out of many. (Sadly, for a good number of them you’ll…
BY HANK REICHMAN Leaders of California’s three systems of public higher education sent a joint letter to President-elect Donald Trump today urging him to allow students who are in the country illegally to continue their educations without fear of deportation. The letter, signed by University of California President Janet Napolitano, California State University Chancellor Timothy P. White and Eloy…
BY HANK REICHMAN On November 18, the American Association of University Professors joined the American Federation of Teachers, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and more than 100 other organizations in a letter calling on president-elect Donald Trump to denounce acts of hate on college campuses and elsewhere. That morning I spoke at a press conference…
BY CHRISTOPHER NEWFIELD (WITH INTRODUCTION BY HENRY REICHMAN) Since it first appeared in the New York Times a week ago, I’ve been meaning to write something in response to Princeton professor Mark Lilla’s op-ed, “The End of Identity Liberalism.” But I’ve been traveling and had to put off the task, hoping along the way to write something…
POSTED BY HENRY REICHMAN The following statement, signed by over 150 historians of Judaism, was published yesterday by the Jewish Journal. As scholars of Jewish history, we are acutely attuned to the fragility of democracies and the consequences for minorities when democracies fail to live up to their highest principles. The United States has a…