This is the first post in what I hope will be a series, in which conference and chapter leaders comment on the issues that they are trying to address and the initiatives that they are trying to organize and to promote. I intend to contact conference or chapter leaders directly to invite them to participate,…
The CAFT report on the Salaita case has sparked another debate about whether donors influenced the decision, with Steven Lubet and Liel Leibovitz arguing that the report refutes the idea of donor influence, and Phan Nyugen and Peter Kirstein rejecting those arguments. In one sense, the question of whether Phyllis Wise was influenced by donors…
The issue of possible donor influence in the Steven Salaita contract-revocation case is significant because on-campus personnel decisions should not be influenced by external actors. Academic freedom and shared governance are severely attenuated if universities and colleges outsource, and are unduly influenced by off-campus forces intruding into personnel and hiring processes on campus. Remember Alan Dershowitz and the…
One of the most influential books on my own vision of academia and American life is Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. Though I have serious reservations about parts of it, I return to the book again and again. Not surprisingly, I thought of it once more, today, when I read Patricia Williams’ article in The Guardian,…
The Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure (CAFT), part of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Academic Senate, issued a report on Dec. 23 about the Steven Salaita case. The CAFT report makes some extraordinary good points, along with a few very bad arguments. Overall, though, it is a firm repudiation of the University of Illinois…
I received permission from Gregory Scholtz, Director, A.A.U.P. Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance, to release this letter: December 30, 2014 Dr. Phyllis Wise Chancellor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Swanlund Administration Building 601 East John Street Champaign, Illinois 61820 Dear Chancellor Wise: The approval and December 23 release by the UIUC Senate Committee…
One of the first contributions to the Academe blog this year was Hank Reichman’s “How NOT to Oppose the Academic Boycott of Israel.” He wrote: Clearly, college and university presidents have the right to speak out on issues of public concern, especially as these relate to higher education. And while their statements may or may not represent…
A source has subsequently clarified in an e-mail the status of the resolution. This update reflects a more accurate depiction of the process. Ten University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign senators have courageously co-sponsored a resolution that represents a stirring affirmation of AAUP documents and basic principles of academic freedom and shared governance. The UIUC Senate Executive Committee…
In my previous post, I discussed James McNair’s article on the proposed multi-million-dollar gift by Koch Foundation and Poppa John’s CEO John Schnatter to the University of Louisville [http://kycir.org/2014/12/09/university-of-louisville-set-to-get-millions-from-charles-koch-foundation-and-papa-johns-ceo/]. That article includes the following paragraph: “The Koch-Schnatter gift would not be the first to expand free-markets instruction at the University of Louisville. Six years ago,…
On December 9, James McNair, writing for Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, has explored the many implications of a pending gift from the Koch Brothers and Poppa John’s CEO John Schnatter to the University of Louisville. The article, the full text of which is available at http://kycir.org/2014/12/09/university-of-louisville-set-to-get-millions-from-charles-koch-foundation-and-papa-johns-ceo/, opens: “Declines in state appropriations and negative financial trends…