BY JENNIFER RUTH “We stand determined to see that Mason—the largest public institution of higher education in Virginia with one of the most diverse student bodies in the US—remains a university of, by, and for the people.” — Bethany Letiecq, Professor in the College of Education and Human Development, George Mason University George Mason University…
BY JENNIFER RUTH “The disaster that we fear will happen to us is happening to us. Our good deans aren’t holding back the worst; they are legitimating it.” – Associate Professor of Germanic Studies Ben Robinson The IndyStar recently reported a story that contains lessons for us all about the overcompliance of administrators during this…
BY JENNIFER RUTH What does looking back at the fate of anti-CRT legislation teach us about the limitations of the law for saving academic freedom? If you recall, towards the end of his first administration, Donald Trump issued the Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotypes. It was part of a backlash against the…
BY JENNIFER RUTH After the often absurd congressional hearings on alleged antisemitism (nine of them in eighteen months), after the withdrawal of federal funding for projects entirely unrelated to antisemitism, after the almost complete destruction of the Department of Education and its ability to run Title VI investigations on antisemitism, people with otherwise very different…
BY ANNA MCCARTHY Academic life has never been more precarious. The Trump administration’s attack on research, on free speech, and on student activism—an attack on the core ideals of the university—builds on decades of economic and political assault on the higher education workforce. Weakening faculty governance has long been the goal of boards of trustees.…
Given the news today (March 21) that Columbia has caved, I am reposting this statement from the Columbia AAUP chapter, which was released on March 18. They clearly need to be in charge of Columbia not its Board of Trustees and the President who works for it. The Assault on Columbia University by Columbia University…
BY JENNIFER RUTH In a review in spring 2022, which seems a century ago, I wrote that “an irony or paradox adheres to [Ellen Schrecker’s book] The Lost Promise in that this riches-to-rags story leaves readers not dispirited but inspired.” Although Schrecker’s book traces the seemingly lost promise of the 60s’ dream of free public…
BY JENNIFER RUTH AAUP and other campus unions are mobilizing to defend their institutions against the Trump administration’s outright assault on higher education and insist that their university administrations do the same. I am posting some of the letters to university administrations that I’m aware of so that they might provide inspiration and models for…
Today, March 13, 2025, the Middle East Studies Association released the following important statement. To go directly to the statement on the site, click here. The second Trump administration has ushered in an existential threat to academic freedom and higher education in the United States. The current campaign targeting universities is an extension of earlier…