POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the text of a statement issued today, September 17, by the Council of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). For background on this case see this previous post and CAUT’s statement imposing censure. On April 22, the Council of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) took…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday, Kent Syverud, Chancellor and President of Syracuse University, and David Van Slyke, Dean of that institution’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, issued a statement in response to controversy that had emerged around a faculty member’s comments about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The faculty member, a tenure-track assistant…
BY HANK REICHMAN A group of 177 Stanford University professors from more than 40 departments, most in the physical and natural sciences, today made public a September 8 letter they sent to US Attorney General Merrick Garland calling for an end to a Trump administration program that sought to uncover alleged Chinese spies in American…
BY ELLEN SCHRECKER Every once in a while, when some new threat to civil liberties or violation of academic freedom surfaces, I get a call from a journalist, documentary filmmaker, or fellow academic asking me to compare the current situation to McCarthyism. ”Can it happen again?” “Is what’s happening today as bad as it was…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Last week, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) released a new database of more than four hundred “Scholars Under FIRE” since 2015 and announced it in breathtaking terms starting with the headline: “REPORT: 3 in 4 campaigns targeting faculty expression result in punishment.” In reality, this three-in-four number included any…
BY JENNIFER RUTH “The neutral ground” is what New Orleanians call the grassy median that runs down streets like St. Charles and Carrollton avenues. The Neutral Ground is also the title of the excellent new documentary on PBS by comedian C.J. Hunt. Hunt’s subject is the controversy over confederate monuments and his title references one…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT In response to the growing influence of Hindutva, a Hindu supremacist ideology supported by India’s prime minister Narendra Modi and a growing number of Indians both within and outside that nation, a conference has been organized to analyze and contest the ideology. “Dismantling Global Hindutva” will take place on-line September 10–12.…
BY AARON ROUSSELL The article below appeared in the most recent Member News of PSU-AAUP (Portland State’s AAUP chapter for faculty and academic professionals). Drawing shamelessly on Anna Kornbluh’s adaptation of Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine, it alerts our members to the weaponization of the covid-19 crisis. We are fortunate to be unionized and able…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY Could we have a winner in the administrative malfeasance contest, COVID-19 division? I think we may! Of course, it’s too early to say. The entries keep rolling in. But this one is a contender. National University is requiring faculty to attend graduation at the San Diego Padres’ Petco Park in downtown San…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY On Friday, I posted the first part of this survey of what faculty face this fall at institutions in COVID-denialist states. Part I discussed conditions in Louisiana and Georgia. Here, I report what I heard from colleagues in Florida, Wisconsin, and Texas. * * * At the University of Florida, where no…