The firing of Louis Wozniak by the University of Illinois raises disturbing questions about academic freedom, due process, and the failure of faculty to defend these principles. Normally, the firing of a tenured professor is such an extraordinary event that it involves acts of breathtaking misconduct or total incompetence. This is not the case with…
Like many people with opinions on Adrian Raine’s speech tonight at the College of Charleston, I am angry. But I am not angry at the College for inviting an expert on the biological links to crime to speak, or for defending academic freedom by refusing to cancel a speech. I’m angry that pandering politicians are…
In a grotesque violation of academic freedom, University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse Chancellor Joe Gow has banned faculty from criticizing Republican Party policies. Rachel Slocum, assistant professor of geography, sent an email to her students explaining that they were unable to use the Census Bureau website because of the government shutdown by “Republican/Tea-Party controlled House of Representatives.” Gow called…
In New Ulm, Minnesota, a small town 85 miles southwest of Minneapolis, this Friday was supposed to be the opening night for a production of “Inherit the Wind,” the classic play written more than a half-century ago depicting a fictionalized version of the 1925 Scopes Monkey trial. Instead, the play has been shut down due to opposition…
What happened at Kansas University this week completely disgusted me, and everyone who believes in academic freedom, or any kind of freedom, should agree. Professor David Guth tweeted in response to one of the gun-related mass shootings this week: “The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons…
Today in Capeheart v. Terrell (2013 IL App (1st) 122517), an Appellate Court of Illinois overturned a state court’s previous ruling that NEIU (Northeastern Illinois University) officials were protected by Illinois’ anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law against a defamation suit by NEIU professor Loretta Capeheart. The appellate ruling reinstates Capeheart’s lawsuit, and means…
Mitch Daniels’ attacks on the teaching of Howard Zinn have drawn widespread condemnation, even from the critics of Zinn that Daniels cited, and the conservative editor of Minding the Campus, John Leo (who condemned “politicians using their power to determine the curriculum or impose a version of history they happen to agree with”). But a few…
Mitch Daniels wrote a response (full text below) to the 90 Purdue professors who wrote to him about the controversy over Howard Zinn. Daniels claimed, “I have never made any suggestion that any university cease teaching whatever its faculty pleases, or cease using any book.” He apparently does not recall his demand in the original…
In his statement defending his efforts to censor Zinn’s book, Mitch Daniels argued, “Respected scholars and communicators of all ideologies agree that the work of Howard Zinn was irredeemably slanted and unsuited for teaching to schoolchildren.” Daniels’ office has been sending out quotes from seven historians critical of Zinn to support that claim. I surveyed…