University of Toronto Facing Censure Over Hiring Scandal

BY DAVID ROBINSON David Robinson is executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT). One of Canada’s preeminent universities could be facing a rare censure by the Canadian Association of University Teachers over accusations the administration caved to outside pressure when it cancelled the appointment of an academic administrator. According to a report…

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Professor Lubet’s Email Problem and Ours

BY STEVEN LUBET It probably should have occurred to me sooner that my university filters outgoing email for various terms of service violations such as catfishing and pornography. Never could I have imagined, however, that a third-party vendor had been empowered to “quarantine” outgoing faculty email based on its content, without ever informing the sender.…

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woman with masking tape over her mouth with a red circle and slash

CUCFA Welcomes Professor Napolitano to the Zoom Board; Calls on Her to Defend Academic Freedom

POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Former homeland security secretary and Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, who earlier this year stepped down as president of the University of California system after seven years and retreated to a faculty position in the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, has joined the Board of Zoom, the company announced…

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Ohio Legislators Demand Ban on “Porn” at Kent State University

BY JOHN K. WILSON I have an essay posted today at the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) blog about a particularly disturbing case at Kent State University where state legislators are explicitly threatening millions of dollars in state funding unless the university bans a textbook that offended the Republican politicians. Here are…

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Complaints About Professor Highlight Differences Between Free Speech and Academic Freedom

BY HANK REICHMAN This past weekend the San Francisco Chronicle carried an article reporting that a white emeritus professor of economics at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) — where I taught for twenty-five years before fully retiring in 2015 — “is teaching racist theories on intelligence.  Students and faculty want him out.”  A petition…

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Censoring Leila Khaled’s Webinars Violated Principles of Academic Freedom, but Sponsors Still Need to Be More Truthful about Her

BY STEVEN LUBET Steven Lubet is Williams Memorial Professor and Director of the Bartlit Center for Trial Advocacy at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.  A version of this post appeared at The Faculty Lounge on October 28. It was deeply objectionable when Zoom and other networking platforms blocked Leila Khaled’s webinars at San Francisco…

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