BY JOHN K. WILSON Former AAUP president Cary Nelson wrote an essay for Inside Higher Ed last week, arguing that departments issuing statements critical of the Israeli government are violating academic freedom and must be silenced: A department is an administrative entity, an arm of the university. Academic and professional standards for departments exist, such…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Cairn University has announced the elimination of the School of Social Work, prompting the following letter from the National Association of Social Workers: The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and its Pennsylvania Chapter have grave concerns about Cairn University’s sudden dismantling of its social work program because of University President…
BY JOHN K. WILSON A Yahoo/YouGov poll last week (May 24-26, 2021) showed a notable result: 39% of Americans think “political correctness” is “a very big problem,” far more than the 32% who say that Covid-19 is “a very big problem.” This was the response even though Covid-19 is still killing 3,500 Americans every week…
BY JOHN K. WILSON North Dakota has approved a new law to banish abortion rights advocates from public colleges in an extraordinary assault on academic freedom that violates the First Amendment. On May 7, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum made a line-item veto of SB 2030. Gov. Burgum did make a partial veto of the…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Davarian L. Baldwin is the Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies and founding director of the Smart Cities Lab at Trinity College and the author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type Books, 2021). John K. Wilson interviewed Baldwin via…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Marquette professor John McAdams, who died on Thursday at the age of 75, was a controversial figure. His most important legacy will be the 2018 ruling of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in McAdams v. Marquette, which is incredibly important in establishing contractual protections for the academic freedom of professors at private…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Here are some events happening in the next month that relate to free expression and academic freedom issues and may interest AcademeBlog readers (followed by some recordings of events held earlier this year, and deadlines for some proposals and grants. Readers are encouraged to mention additional events in the comments. Below…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Earlier today, Boise State University lifted its suspension on 52 classes with 1300 students for UF 200: Foundations of Ethics & Diversity. This was a necessary correction to a serious mistake the administration made last week when it announced one of the largest attacks on academic freedom in American history, with 52…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Jennifer Ruth, who is a contributing editor here at AcademeBlog as well as a professor of film studies at Portland State University (PSU) and a member of the AAUP’s Committee A, published an important op-ed this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education, and so I wanted to offer my critique…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The new Academic Freedom Alliance launched on March 8, 2021. Below is my interview via email with Keith E. Whittington, Chair of the Academic Committee of the Academic Freedom Alliance. Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University, and the author of Speak Freely: Why Universities Must…