Higher Education Events This Summer

How Biased Are the Campuses? A Debate in DC How biased are the campuses? A debate between John K. Wilson & Mal Kline, Executive Director, Accuracy in Academia (AIA) Thursday, June 14, 2012, 6-8 PM The Van Andel Center, The Heritage Foundation, 214 Massachusetts Ave., NE, Washington, DC. The event is free but please RSVP…

An Interview with Norman Finkelstein

John K. Wilson of Academe Blog interviewed Norman Finkelstein via email about his thoughts on the 5th anniversary of being denied tenure by DePaul University. Academe Blog: Have you been considered for any faculty jobs since leaving DePaul? Do you feel like you’ve been blacklisted from academia?

An Interview with Alan Dershowitz

John K. Wilson asked Alan Dershowitz to respond to some questions via email about his role in the denial of tenure to Norman Finkelstein. With the exception of correcting Dershowitz’s mistake of referring to Peter Novick as “Michael,” his full and unedited response is below. Here are the questions:

Finkelstein, Academic Freedom, and a Demand to Fire Professors

Five years ago this week, DePaul University denied tenure to political scientist Norman Finkelstein (pdf of tenure denial letter). To mark the anniversary of this important academic freedom case, Academe Blog will have essays by Peter Kirstein and DePaul professor Matthew Abraham, and interviews with Norman Finkelstein and Alan Dershowitz. Finkelstein remains a figure who…

Interview with Rudy Fichtenbaum

Rudy Fichtenbaum, a professor at Wright State University, was elected the next president of the AAUP last month. John K. Wilson interviewed Fichtenbaum via email about his goals for the AAUP. John K. Wilson: A headline about your election on InsideHighered.com asked, “Is the AAUP about to change course?” Is it? In what direction?

The Liberty Way of Censorship

It used to be that a Republican presidential candidate speaking at Liberty University was controversial because of the institution’s repressive, far-right-wing politics. Now, the controversy goes the other way. Mitt Romney is being attacked by students at Liberty University because he has been invited to be this year’s commencement speaker. That’s controversial because Romney is…

Distorting the AAUP’s History

On the blog of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), its longtime president Anne Neal writes about the election of Rudy Fichtenbaum as the new president of the AAUP. Her alarmist rhetoric not only distorts what the AAUP does today, but fundamentally rewrites the history of the AAUP in a completely misleading way.…

The Truth about Tenure

The AAUP today released an important new report on the violation of faculty rights at two Louisiana public universities, Northwestern State University and Southeastern Louisiana University (pdf of full report). AAUP Associate General Secretary Jordan Kurland called it, “the worst situation the AAUP has encountered of using cutbacks in funding as an opportunity to select unwanted…

Chicago State: The Worst Speech Code, Ever

UPDATE: Yesterday, Chicago State reversed course and eliminated this policy. On March 22, Chicago State University’s Office of Marketing & Communication announced a new Communications and Media Relations Policy that may be the most repressive speech code ever enacted at a university. Taken literally, it appears to ban all faculty communications, anywhere. AAUP president Cary…