New AAUP Report on Financial Exigency
The AAUP has just issued a new report on “The Role of the Faculty in Conditions of Financial Exigency.” The report “insists that faculty members must be involved in consultation and deliberation at every stage of the process, beginning with a determination that a state of financial exigency exists.” According to the report, “Financial exigency…
Students Return to WZRD
AAUP Report on University of Northern Iowa
The AAUP has issued a report on the University of Northern Iowa (pdf), finding that the university had “no legitimate basis, financial or otherwise” to terminate faculty appointments and failed to follow its own policies. UNI president Ben Allen has issued a response to the AAUP report. You can read coverage of the report in…
Banning Ag Research at Iowa State
Michael Gartner has an excellent op-ed in the Des Moines Register today about the serious threat to academic freedom posed by Iowa State president Steve Leath, who has banned the Harkin Institute from conducting research on agriculture without getting the approval of another research institute on campus, the Center for Agricultural Research and Development (CARD).…
Accreditation and Academic Freedom
AAUP Higher Ed Conference Call for Proposals
The Civility and Decorum Police at NEIU, and the Continuing Shutdown of WZRD
More than four months after Northeastern Illinois University shut down the student-run radio station WZRD and banned the students from broadcasting, the lockout continues. On November 6, acting director of Student Leadership Development Veronica Rodriguez wrote a memo announcing her decision about the fate of WZRD. Rodriguez declared that WZRD could be restored to an…
A New Blog on Liberty, and Upcoming Events
Erica Goldberg, a Visiting Assistant Professor at Penn State Law School, has started a new blog about liberty and legal issues. She and I engaged in a back-and-forth discussion in the comments on her first post about the meaning of liberty and its application to restrictive student organizations. And I wanted to let everyone know…
The Shutdown of WZRD at NEIU
On June 29, 2012, the administration at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) in Chicago shut down the student-run broadcast radio station, WZRD, and banned the student DJs from the airwaves. It was an act of censorship without due process that ignored NEIU’s policies, violated the First Amendment, and broke a state law protecting freedom of college…