BY JOHN K. WILSON I’m disturbed by many of the arguments against the decision by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center to hire as a senior fellow Marc Short, the former White House director of legislative affairs and senior adviser to President Donald Trump. William Hitchcock and Melvyn Leffler, history professors at Virginia, resigned from…
BY JOHN K. WILSON In a speech yesterday at a Turning Point USA conference, Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared: “We are reaching a pivotal and historic moment. After more than two centuries of defending the right to speak freely, a cadre—mostly on the hard left—has openly and systematically justified action to deny Americans the right…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Today’s CBS Sunday Morning featured a segment bemoaning the loss of civility, which is apparently the great crisis of our times. It included lawyer (and law professor) Alan Dershowitz declaring, “It’s hard to have dialogue without civility.” Dershowitz has complained about being shunned in Martha’s Vineyard for his defense of Donald…
BY JOHN K. WILSON I have a letter to the editor in tomorrow’s Chicago Tribune, in response to a July 11 editorial by the Tribune which glorified the University of Illinois while urging lawmakers to exert more control over other colleges to force them to cut costs and programs. I wrote: The Tribune Editorial Board advises more…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 4-2 ruling on Friday in favor of John McAdams against Marquette University has received an enormous amount of media coverage, and it deserves it. This is a very important decision protecting the contractual right of academic freedom (and the AAUP’s definition of it), which sets a precedent…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled in favor of John McAdams in his case against Marquette University, with the majority writing, “We conclude that the University breached the Contract by suspending Dr. McAdams for exercising his contractually protected right of academic freedom.” The Court ordered, “we hold the University to its…
BY JOHN K. WILSON As the 4th of July draws to a close, the day when Americans across the country believe they have a right to launch illicit explosives anywhere they want to, it’s an important time to talk about mistaken beliefs in fundamental rights. A New York Times news analysis last week titled, “How…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Joe Knott, one of the Republicans who dominate the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, published an op-ed on May 25 that imagines an alarming future for higher education under the headline “We need more conservative professors. Here’s how we can do that at UNC.” Knott generously declares his support for…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The corruption at George Mason University has prompted some conservatives to jump to the defense of giving wealthy donors more influence. Jim Geraghty at National Review argues that “A Washington Post Scoop about the Koch Brothers Falls Apart.” But actually it’s Geraghty’s argument that quickly falls apart. According to Geraghty, “The headline in the…
BY NADINE STROSSEN WITH JOHN K. WILSON Nadine Strossen, the former ACLU President (1991-2008) and Professor of Constitutional Law at New York Law School, is the author of a new book, HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship (Oxford University Press). She will be speaking May 5 at Politics and Prose…