Today’s InsideHigherEd includes dueling essays on the Salaita firing by me and by Cary Nelson. You can read my comment on Nelson’s essay here. Nelson’s assertion that “I believe this was an academic, not a political, decision” strains all credulity. No one can seriously believe that the political consequences of hiring a controversial professor had no…
Rick Perlstein’s new book The Invisible Bridge, is sure to anger some conservatives who think Ronald Reagan qualified for sainthood long ago. And it angered one Reagan lover in particular, Craig Shirley, who runs a PR firm for clients like Ann Coulter and Citizens United, and who wrote a book about Reagan 10 years ago…
The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has written a five-page letter to the AAUP (pdf), which is considering an investigation of the institution because it revoked tenure and then dismissed two professors under its new system of re-evaluating faculty every seven years. The letter asks over 30 questions to the AAUP about its procedures…
I wrote a short essay for a Minding the Campus symposium about William Deresiewicz’s recent essay, “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League,” from his soon-to-be-released book, Educating Sheep. The symposium includes Peter Augustine Lawler (who praises religious colleges for providing the education of the soul Deresiewicz desires), Samuel Goldman (who argues that college doesn’t…
The following is a message from Diana Vallera, president of P-Fac, the Part-Time Faculty union at Columbia College Chicago, and a member of the Illinois AAUP State Council: You are invited to join P-Fac and UIC as we kickoff our new Pursuit of Truth Campaign to build a coalition of Chicago colleges and universities. Pursuit of…
One of the most frustrating things about higher education (and the business world, too) is how failed CEOs get golden parachutes. At my institution, Illinois State University, everybody is still fuming that former president Tim Flanagan received a $480,000 golden parachute for being fired after a few months on the job. Although the trustees could…
John Leo at Minding the Campus discusses the issue of discriminatory policies by registered student organizations and claims, “religious groups should have absolute freedom in the process of picking their leaders.” Actually, he doesn’t really believe that, because that’s what I believe. The whole argument over religious student groups is the demand by some that…
At this morning’s 100th meeting of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), the AAUP membership voted unanimously to censure Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) for denying tenure to John Boyle without adequate cause and in retaliation for his department’s involvement in criticizing the administration, violating academic freedom and due process. Illinois AAUP Committee A Chair…
Rep. Alan Grayson is well known as a progressive advocate in Congress, and a strong supporter of civil liberties. That makes the bill he just proposed even more appalling. On May 30, 2014, the very same day that Grayson passed an important amendment banning funding for prosecuting journalists for refusing to reveal their sources, Grayson introduced H.R. 4776, “To prohibit…
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) recently issued a new report on disinvitations, which claims that conservatives are almost three times as likely as those on the left to encounter attempts at disinvitation of a campus speaker since 2000 based on an analysis of 192 incidents. Trying to document all the disinvitation attempts…