The following resolution was released by the two organizations on June 30: The American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), as the two national scholarly associations devoted to the study of all education and higher education, respectively, affirm the principle that academic freedom, grounded in the tenure…
This morning the Chronicle of Higher Education published an excellent and important article by Beth McMurtrie entitled, “Nearly a Year Later, Fallout From Salaita Case Lingers on Campuses.” It is definitely worth reading, and not just because I’m quoted in it several times. The article also provides an opportunity for some further reflection on the…
Writing for University World News, John Kelly reports on the debate over an academic boycott of Israeli universities that is now occurring in Ireland. Kelly notes that the issue has become prominent in Ireland considerably later than in most member nations of the European Union, 14 of which have governmentally endorsed the boycott. In Ireland,…
According to the Champaign, Illinois News-Gazette, Steven G. Salaita has accepted a position with the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. See here. Most academics rarely recover from a summary dismissal, particularly when ethical and moral sentiments are expressed that induce controversy. Perhaps, the national attention that this tenure travesty generated may have facilitated this positive development,…
Earlier this month a student at Crafton Hills College, a community college in the Los Angeles area, and her parents urged the institution to ban several graphic novels. They complained about four works: Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel; YY: The Last Man, Vol. 1, by Brian Vaughan; The Sandman, Vol. 2: The Doll’s House, by…
The AAUP focuses on academic freedom issues within the United States. Scholars at Risk, an organization based at New York University, focuses on attacks on academic freedom elsewhere in the world—most of which involve actual physical attacks. According to Free to Think, a new report issued by Scholars at Risk as part of its Academic…
The News-Gazette of Champaign, Illinois published yesterday in its Sunday edition an op-ed I wrote on my interpretation of the American Association of University Professors censure of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The censure resulted from the summary dismissal of Associate Professor Steven Salaita for his tweets on the war in Gaza last summer. The paper supplied the…
The two great parts of American higher education are the students and the faculty. The administrators are only around to facilitate the learning of the former and the teaching and research of the latter. Or that’s the way we imagine it. Over the past fifty years, the students have become customers instead of learners and…
This comes from The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Louisiana State University system’s Board of Supervisors voted last week to uphold the firing of Teresa Buchanan, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction, based on accusations she had engaged in sexual harassment and violated the Americans With Disabilities Act. F. King Alexander, the system’s president, had…
John Wilson’s post on comedians who have been critical of college audiences is a terrific essay–one of the most incisively perceptive pieces on any topic that I have read this year. I would humbly add just a couple of observations of my own to the discussion that John’s essay should provoke. Provocative figures, including provocative…