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…
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 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…
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…
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has issued a new report about California universities based upon false evidence, distorted anecdotes, random online postings, and a series of terrible arguments that are fundamentally contrary to academic freedom and the idea of the university as a place for the free debate of ideas. What the NAS calls…
The happy news this week that University of Illinois President Michael Hogan will resign was followed by two disturbing pieces of information. First, a state appeals court ruling that adjunct faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago will not be allowed to be part of the tenure-track faculty union at UIC. Second, the news…
Last week, an Illinois court ruled (pdf) for the first time enforcing Illinois’ law protecting college newspapers (a law passed in the wake of a 7th Circuit ruling against freedom of the student press). The court ruled that former faculty advisor Gerian Steven Moore, who had been fired from his post, must be reinstated. As…
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has signed a new law banning unionization by graduate student research assistants at public colleges. It’s appalling that students are denied their fundamental right to form a union simply because they also happen to be students. Even if you dislike the idea of graduate student unions, you should dislike even more…
Rush Limbaugh’s insults against Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke have sparked a national controversy. Today (Wednesday), I’ll be discussing Limbaugh (and my book about him) on Al Sharpton’s MSNBC show (6-7pm ET) and Thursday on the public radio show To the Point (2pm ET). But Limbaugh’s attacks on Fluke are also a reminder of the…
Here’s an actual job posting at the University of Chicago, Executive Director, Intellectual Capital: Chicago Booth seeks to better exploit the wealth of intellectual capital created by its faculty. The Executive Director, Intellectual Capital serves as the Chief Knowledge Officer, and is charged with creating a vision for sharing and disseminating that intellectual capital and…