BY JOHN K. WILSON T.J. Martinson, a widely acclaimed novelist and author of The Reign of the Kingfisher, was hired in April as an Assistant Professor of English at Olivet Nazarene University, a Christian college in Illinois. And on June 28, Vice President Carol Summers informed Martinson that he will not be allowed to teach.…
BY JOHN K. WILSON I interviewed Ian Reifowitz via email about his new book which is being published today, The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh’s Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Ig Publishing). Reifowitz is Professor of Historical Studies at SUNY-Empire State College and also the author of Obama’s America: A…
BY JOHN K. WILSON This afternoon, Oberlin College was hit by a jury with $33 million in punitive damages added on to the June 7 judgment of $11.2 million for defamation. (The punitive damages will probably be reduced to $22.4 million under state law, but perhaps $10 million in plaintiff legal fees will also be…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Steven Thrasher, a student graduation speaker who received his Ph.D. from New York University last week, sparked enormous controversy with his speech. Thrasher expressed support for “the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against the Apartheid State Government in Israel” and declared, “We must stand together to vanquish racism and Islamophobia…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Mississippi Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning debated proper salad preparation techniques on May 16. That’s because they spent two hours discussing whether James M. Thomas should be granted tenure despite his criticism of Republican legislators. Ultimately, Thomas was allowed to receive tenure (with an untold number…
BY JOHN K. WILSON One of the strongest arguments for free speech and against allowing speakers to be shouted down speakers was made on May 5, 2019 by a group of 15 white supremacist Holocaust deniers in Russellville, Arkansas. Billy Roper, who runs the racist ShieldWall Network, led the group who disrupted a March of…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The University of Massachusetts at Amherst is hosting an interesting event on May 4 called “Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech, and the Battle for Palestinian Human Rights.” The event will feature Roger Waters, Linda Sarsour, Patrisse Cullors, Marc Lamont Hill, Dave Zirin, and Vijay Prashad, and is being organized by…
BY JOHN K. WILSON DePaul ethics professor Jason Hill has sparked controversy with an essay harshly denouncing Palestinians. You might think this is the point where we start talking about protesters demanding his firing, but the reality is quite different. One radio show host denounced the “DePaul weak-minded students calling for censorship of a respected…
BY JOHN K. WILSON I interviewed Henry Reichman, chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, about his new book, The Future of Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press). Reichman will discuss his book on a panel at the AAUP’s Annual Conference on June 13, 2019 in Arlington, Virginia and other future…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Trump Administration’s decision to ban Omar Barghouti from coming to America is an alarming attack on academic freedom and free speech. Barghouti, a co-founder of the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement, was scheduled to speak at Harvard and New York University but the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) ordered…