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…
Former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, the president of Purdue University, should be fired. That’s a statement I don’t make lightly. It’s also a statement I don’t make because of Daniels’ idiotic comments demeaning historian Howard Zinn. Instead, the problem with Daniels is his failure to understand or protect academic freedom, which is one of the…
I invited National Association of Scholars president Peter Wood to speak at the AAUP conference this past weekend, and organized a couple of sessions with him on the Higher Education Bubble and the NAS report on the teaching of American history. Unfortunately, Wood may be accustomed to speaking before loyal supporters and friends, since he…
On June 15, the American Association of University Professors at its annual meeting voted unanimously to place National Louis University of Illinois and Southern University, Baton Rouge on its list of censured institutions for violations of academic freedom and tenure. AAUP First Vice-President Henry Reichman declared, “What happened at National Louis was ominous.” The AAUP…
The IRS “scandal” has generated enormous outrage from conservatives and the mainstream press alike. According to Republican politicians, it is absolutely unacceptable for the government to target nonprofit groups based on their political ideology. And they’re right, as President Obama has noted. But an example of government targeting of a “liberal” nonprofit that works with…