Matt Dillon Is Dead: Why We Need Videos on the Academe Blog

Marty, a man whose writing I very much admire and whom I hope to meet in person one day (I really wish his office was just down the hall from mine so we could go get coffee), wrote in his postscript addressing my post, which in turn had addressed a post on the Chronicle page…

It Is Illogical to Assert That Death Threats Do Not Have a Chilling Effect on Free Speech

Dear Ulf: I generally find your posts to be very amusing. But I think that you have missed not just the bullseye but the whole target in your most recent post. Regardless of how the writer of the piece may have slanted it, the core issue in this situation was that the speaker was scheduled,…

Adding to the Armamentarium of Academic Freedom

Robert Kreiser, a former staffer of the American Association of University Professors Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance, spoke at an Illinois Conference annual meeting. I expressed an opinion that one of the AAUP’s most eloquent and powerful statements on academic freedom appeared in one of its lesser known Redbook documents: Academic Freedom in the Medical School. He…

Gaming Academic Freedom

Last week, at a meeting of the Academic Freedom Committee of the Professional Staff Congress (the CUNY faculty union), the name Anita Sarkeesian came up. Though she is not an academic (in the sense of being employed by a college or university), she felt forced to cancel an appearance at Utah State University due to threats…

Dressing Up as Biblical Figure for Halloween Creepy?

I had hoped to be scared this Halloween by maybe taking a creepy clown up on his offer to hug me in what looks like a setting out of some Masterpiece murder mystery. Of course clowns like mimes are creepy even if they don’t touch. But Googling Halloween and education, I need not have…

Academic Freedom Proposals and Events

In addition to submitting articles to Academe Blog, scholars interested in academic freedom may want to know about these opportunities: The AAUP has issued a call for proposals for presentations and panels at the AAUP’s annual conference on higher education, June 11-13, 2015 in Washington, DC. Deadline is December 10. The Journal of Historical Sociology is…

The "Slow" Decline of the Elite Scholarly Journal

The elite scholarly journals, long the gatekeepers of the ivory tower, have been losing their effectiveness this last decade or so–in their gatekeeping role, at least. As these journals increasingly become profit centers in the corporate publishing industry, their real impact is constricted to only those who can afford the toll. At the same time,…

Salaita in His Own Words: Columbia College, Chicago Speaking Tour

Professor Steven Salaita on October 8, 2014 spoke at Columbia College Chicago that I previously commented on. John Dworkin asked the panelists, Steven Salaita, Iymen Chehade and myself whether we would consent to being taped and YouTubed: a neologism? Mr. Dworkin recently released on his YouTube channel videos of the three panelists. Here are parts one and…

Speech, Civility, and Guns

A few days ago Marty Kich posted an item on this blog that reported an effort by gun-rights advocates in Oklahoma to pass legislation that will allow guns to be brought onto the state’s 25 public college and university campuses. An officer of the state’s Second Amendment Association promotes the legislation in these terms: “’Anywhere…

"Embracing" the News from All Sources: Relax, It Won't Kill You

I have a good friend who listens to Rush Limbaugh every day for too long. Of course some of us would say that to meet this limit should not take even a day or one minute. My friend spends the remaining part of the day, having been vaccinated by Limbaugh serum parroting in feverish pitch…

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