BY ALAN SINGER In times of crisis, academics must be public intellectuals. Why invest our lives in becoming experts in history, society, policy, science, or any other field of study and then remain isolated in an academic cocoon for safety or career advancement? The consequences of silence for our profession and our society are too…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday, September 19, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) complaint charging the university with violations of legally protected faculty employee expression surrounding the war in Gaza. I posted a summary of the complaint to this blog yesterday. To access the full 581-page (including…
BY HANK REICHMAN Today, as the UC Regents were completing their meeting at the UCLA campus, the Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA), a partner of the AAUP, and the faculty associations at UC Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Santa Cruz filed an amended unfair labor practice (ULP) complaint against…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY A first-of-its-kind survey of higher education faculty across the South has revealed that an overwhelming majority of respondents in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas are deeply dissatisfied with the current state of higher education. The survey, which received responses from nearly 3,000…
BY EVE DARIAN-SMITH Something is broken in our college and university systems. Professors are being declared “the enemy of the people” by J. D. Vance and other MAGA Republicans. Book bans, curriculum reviews, attacks on DEI programs, threats of defunding, and suspending faculty or removing their tenure are becoming widespread. Students engaged in peaceful assembly…
BY JENNIFER RUTH Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Saree Makdisi, UCLA professor and author of Palestine Inside Out and Tolerance is a Wasteland, for the documentary film The Palestine Exception. “The knowledge is out there,” Makdisi told me. “The genie is not going back in the bottle. In fact, the bottle is broken.…
BY ANTHONY ALESSANDRINI The AAUP’s new “Statement on Academic Boycotts,” which reverses its prior opposition to academic boycotts, is a major declaration. Stating clearly that boycotts “can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education,” it confirms there are instances in which upholding academic freedom may…
BY NATHANIEL MILLS Joe Lockard’s August 8 Academe Blog post criticizes, with multiple errors and missing contexts, a statement of the executive committee of the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities AAUP chapter. The chapter’s statement protests the role played by nonacademic groups in the UMN administration’s recent decision to block the hire of Raz Segal as…
BY JOE LOCKARD Very few people other than faculty members pay attention to faculty statements directed at administrations. It is rare that they have political impact beyond colleges and universities. We nonetheless write and publish them as instruments for establishing a faculty voice. Therein lies a problem: faculty statements can become blinkered issuances that use…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY At the AAUP Conference and Biennial Meeting last month, one of the most widely discussed sessions featured the presentation of a recent white paper written by Isaac Kamola, director of the AAUP’s new Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. Manufacturing Backlash: Right-Wing Think Tanks and Legislative Attacks on Higher Education, 2021–2023…