BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN I realise this post may not endear me to the leadership of my university, but I will approach this with the knowledge it appears on an A.A.U.P. blog! Catholic universities such as Saint Xavier, Duquesne, and Manhattan have fiercely resisted the right of part-time faculty to organise into a collective bargaining unit.…
BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN The Bradley University AAUP chapter contacted the Illinois Conference Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure on behalf of Professor Douglas Antola Crowe. He was a full-time non-tenure track instructor with twenty-seven years of service. He was recently non-reappointed without explanation, and fought courageously through various Bradley grievance procedures for reinstatement. He…
BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN A spectre is haunting Chicago–the spectre is academic unionism. Both the University of Chicago and Loyola University Chicago have witnessed the rise of contingent faculty organising success. Now at Northwestern University, a placid campus in Evanston, part-time faculty and non-tenure track full time faculty are moving rapidly in that direction. According…
BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN Emanuel Goldman’s, “Why an Academic Boycott of Israel is Wrong,” appears in the May-June 2016 issue of Academe: Magazine of the A.A.U.P. The article is needlessly inflammatory and dismissive of ethical challenges to Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Professor Goldman claims that its supporters, which includes many tens of thousands of students…
BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN Professor Iymen Chehade, Columbia College Chicago, and I are members of Illinois AAUP Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. We are appearing on a panel in Chicago that is sponsored by the United Nations Association as part of their Global Conflicts Resolution series. The panel is April 13 in Chicago’s…
BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN In 2008, then Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (Dem. NY)–she avoids using her family name and prefers the title “Mrs.” to garner presumably the anti-feminist vote-was engaged in one of the most epic contests in American history for the Democratic-presidential nomination. In May 2008, her first presidential bid was stagnating having lost BOTH the Indiana…
BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN Right-wing ideologue, Governor Bruce Rauner, has indeed demonstrated his disdain for the vulnerable and marginalised working class of Illinois. A bright, luminous red-state reactionary in blue-state, pro-union, pro-labour Illinois, he has vetoed a bill that would have given $721,000,000 to help fund higher education for income-challenged students. The Illinois General Assembly, which marked…
BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN Loyola University Chicago adjuncts voted January 27 to unionise by a vote of 142-82, They will be represented by the Service Employees International Union (S.E.I.U.) Local 73. Unlike other Roman Catholic Universities such as Manhattan College, Saint Xavier and Duquesne, the Loyola University administration, while opposing it, used tools of persuasion such…
BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN The adjunct struggle for union rights and human rights is spreading. The National Labour Relations Board (N.L.R.B.) has authorised Loyola University Chicago adjuncts and non-tenure track full-time faculty to conduct an election. Adjuncts at the University of Chicago are organising. The Chicago City Council in October voted unanimously to endorse the…
The New York Times covered the Historians Against the War resolution to protect academic freedom in Gaza and the West Bank that have been under Israeli control since the 1967 war. It stated in part: More than a half-dozen American scholarly groups have passed resolutions condemning Israel, including the American Anthropological Association, which endorsed a boycott…