By an overwhelming 39-5 vote the Louisiana State University (LSU) Faculty Senate today (October 6) voted to censure three top administrators for their roles in the dismissal of tenured professor Teresa Buchanan for allegedly creating a hostile environment in classes with sexually explicit jokes. LSU Baton Rouge has been on the AAUP’s list of censured…
Last week I posted an item reporting on the bargaining efforts of two AAUP/AAUP-CBC affiliated faculty unions, the California Faculty Association (CFA) in the California State University system and the Professional Staff Congress (PSC) in the City University of New York. Now comes word that the AAUP’s own collective bargaining chapter at the Connecticut State…
One of the most disheartening events of this past summer on the Academe blog was the rise of invective in the comments that started with our posting of a guest commentary by a group of scholars with particular connections to–or interests in–India. The vituperation exhibited astonished me, and it came in the dozens and then hundreds (to…
Last week the AAUP and the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) issued a statement protesting remarks made by University of California Regent Richard Blum, which threatened negative political consequences for the University if it did not approve a policy on alleged anti-semitic speech acceptable to him and his wife, U.S. Senator Dianne…
Two AAUP/AAUP-CBC affiliates — the California Faculty Association (CFA), which represents over 23,000 faculty members in the 23-campus California State University (CSU), and the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which represents more than 25,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York (CUNY) and the CUNY Research Foundation — are engaged in protracted contract…
Not too long ago I was on a panel about academic freedom at the University of California, Davis, with Robert Post, Dean of Yale Law School, former AAUP General Counsel and Committee A Chair, and co-author (with Matthew Finkin) of For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom. At a dinner afterwards with campus…
Michael Behrent, the president of the Appalachian State University chapter of the AAUP, and John Steen, Program Coordinator of Scholars for North Carolina’s Future (with contribution from Jim Carmichael, professor at UNC Greensboro and president of the AAUP’s North Carolina Conference) have an op-ed today in The News & Observer or Raleigh, NC entitled “Outrageous move to foster runaway…
It is time for a direct and specific disavowal of a key component of the sacred text of the AAUP: the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Most genuflect before its presence as either the Magna Carta of higher ed, the common law of the profession, the great classic document of academic freedom…
On September 17, the University of California Board of Regents discussed a proposed “Statement of Principles Against Intolerance.” The statement, which was prompted by allegations of harassment of Jewish students, had met with wide criticism from advocates of academic freedom (including a post by John Wilson on this blog) on one side and from Jewish…
In the current issue of Academe, AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum explores the question, “What’s New about Today’s Corporate University?” He concludes: Corporations today are interested not just in controlling those who might criticize their agenda but also in using institutions of higher education as publicly financed research centers and privately financed (tuition-funded) training facilities that focus on…