George Mason University (GMU) has gotten a lot of attention this week, with FIRE declaring that GMU “has eliminated all of its speech codes, earning the highest, ‘green light’ rating from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.” Unfortunately, this isn’t true. GMU continues to have a Student Code of Conduct that’s flawed in many…
Since 1992 the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression at the University of Virginia has celebrated the birth and ideals of its namesake by calling attention each year to those who would censor free expression. Announced on or near April 13—the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson—the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as…
The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that a worker using profanity on Facebook that criticised an employer cannot be used to fire the worker. The N.L.R.B. has jurisdiction over labour and union issues at private post-secondary institutions. It is possible that this ruling could have major academic freedom implications when civility is claimed as…
The issue of naming John Doe donour defendants in Professor Steven Salaita’s lawsuit against the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, was one of the more creative and interesting aspects of this case. Donour pressure has frequently been a fulcrum in suppressing academic freedom as institutions run for cover when controversy arises, and the corporate university…
Stanley Fish, Versions of Academic Freedom: From Professionalism to Revolution (University of Chicago, 2014) Reviewed by Steve Macek, North Central College Literary critic, law professor, one time New York Times columnist, former dean and noted public intellectual, Stanley Fish has made a name for himself as a wry commentator on college life and campus politics.…
This essay originally appeared in Logos: a journal of modern society and culture. The first paragraph was edited to reflect subsequent revelations concerning the Association and the Great War. Howard Zinn died five years ago in 2010. The American Association of University Professors was founded 100 years ago in 1915 to defend academic freedom for professors…
On March 13, Joan W. Scott, Professor Emerita of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study and a member of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, delivered a talk on “Civility and Academic Freedom” at a celebration of the AAUP’s centennial held at California State University, East Bay. That talk has now…
The following is the text of my keynote address at “Hurdles on the Horizon: Governance & Student Success in the Connecticut State College & University System,” a conference organized by the Faculty Advisory Committee to the CSCU Board of Regents for Higher Education at Manchester Community College on April 10, 2015. Let me begin by…
Laura Loomer, a student at Barry University, was suspended on Monday. Her crime? Embarrassing the university, by recording an undercover video for James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas in which she duped employees into expressing support for her forming a pro-ISIS student group. What Loomer did was sleazy and dishonest. She took advantage of the fact that…
“Publish or perish” is a common expression in academia. PhD holders must achieve the required number of publications between the time of appointment to a tenure-track position and turning in the dossier to the Promotion and Tenure committee or risk restarting a grueling job search. The stress that this pressure to publish induces has brought…