BY HANK REICHMAN In 1998 the late philosopher Richard Rorty published Achieving Our Country: Leftist Thought in Twentieth-Century America. While I was familiar with Rorty’s interesting brand of neo-pragmatism, with its debt to AAUP founding father John Dewey, I must have missed this book and have no recollection of its overall arguments or its reception. …
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following statement was issued today. The AAUP and the AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress have never endorsed or supported a candidate for president of the United States or otherwise engaged in partisan political activity on the national level. For over one hundred years the AAUP has vigilantly defended the professional rights…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Even before the failed military coup of July 15 in Turkey, concern about academic freedom in that country was growing. On March 30, AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum and I issued a “Statement on Academic Freedom in Turkey,” expressing grave concern about attacks on more than 1,000 Turkish scholars. In July numerous…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Over the past few years this blog has posted a number of items related to the work of the conservative North Carolina-based John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy. In March, 2015, John Wilson reported that the center had praised the decision of the University of North Carolina Board of…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN CUNY Rising, a coalition of the AAUP-affiliated Professional Staff Congress (PSC) and other community and student allies working to build support for public higher education and the City University of New York (CUNY) has issued “A CUNY Student Bill of Rights,” launching a petition campaign to support investment in higher education…
BY HANK REICHMAN In previous posts to this blog I have criticized the blacklisting activities of two pro-Israel organizations, the Amcha Initiative and Canary Mission. The former group published a list of 218 faculty members in Middle East studies at U.S. colleges and universities who signed a petition calling for an academic boycott of Israel…
BY HANK REICHMAN I first met Tom Hayden, who died eight days ago at age 76, when we both participated in the occupation of Mathematics Hall during the Columbia University student rebellion of 1968. Tom was, of course, no longer a student and had no institutional affiliation with Columbia, but he joined the protesters both…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Kevin Birmingham has a Ph.D. in English from Harvard, where he is presently an instructor in the university’s writing program. His book, The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses won both the 2015 PEN New England Award for Nonfiction and the 2015 Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism. …
BY HANK REICHMAN Early yesterday morning Harvard University and its striking food service workers reached a tentative agreement, which, if approved by union members in a vote scheduled for today, will bring to an end a 22-day strike that garnered national attention. (For previous posts on this blog about the strike go here, here, here,…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the text of a media release issued this afternoon by the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties (APSCUF): The strike is over. Faculty negotiators have reached a tentative agreement with Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. The three-year deal, ending in June 30, 2018, concludes a…