BY THE NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP The National Coalition Against Censorship today sent this letter, co-signed by the AAUP, to Zoom, Facebook, and Youtube regarding the censorship of an event at San Francisco State University. October 8, 2020 Dear Mr. Yuan, Mr. Zuckerberg, and Ms. Wojcicki: As organizations dedicated to protecting freedom of expression, the…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN On September 29 I had the honor and privilege of participating, along with fellow AAUP Committee A member Joan Wallach Scott, in a webinar on academic freedom and student activism sponsored by the Andrea Mitchell Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of Pennsylvania. The discussion was moderated by…
BY SOCIOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION PRESIDENTS The following letter was sent on September 30 by presidents of sociological organizations to express concern about threatened consequences for two sociology professors who participated in September 8 and 9 #Scholarstrike activities. It was initially signed by twelve presidents, and an additional president signed on later. TO: President Michael K. Young…
BY THE CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY HISTORY DEPARTMENT Responding to President Donald Trump’s September 17 attack on history that is not “patriotic”, and in particular, the “1619” feature in the New York Times, the Chapman University History Department decided to go public with their reply, posting it to The Panther, the university’s student newspaper. Under the heading,…
BY J. MOUFAWAD-PAUL Alain Badiou once remarked that philosophy was “democratic” insofar as anyone is capable of critical thinking, but “undemocratic” because the pursuit of truth is not the same as voting according to one’s subjective opinion. In my opinion, this position is the basis for critical thinking and critical scholarship––anyone is capable of critical…
BY NAN ENSTAD Nearly every day there is bad news about draconian cuts to a college or a university system as the economic emergency prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic compounds decades of crisis in higher education in the United States. We can expect such cuts to continue and worsen unless we change course in how…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier this week John Wilson posted on this blog a piece about how “an event at San Francisco State University was banned by leading tech giants after a campaign to censor it.” If you have not read John’s post, please do so now; this is an incredibly important issue. As John…
BY ROBERT A. SCOTT Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic this past spring prompted the rapid turn to remote teaching and learning; caused uncertainty about whether teaching and learning would continue in the remote mode this fall; resulted in dire enrollment forecasts for domestic and international students; and raised questions about what plans should be made…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Earlier today, an event at San Francisco State University was banned by leading tech giants after a campaign to censor it was led by a large number of pro-Israel groups. It is an example of the growing power of conservative cancel culture, and this censorship reveals the threat to academic freedom…
BY WAVY THE BEAR Hi! I’m Wavy the Bear, senior stuffed brand ambassador at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn! The nice folks at the AAUP liked the story about “managerial techniques” and “academic freedom” that I sent them for their journal, so now I’m “blogging”! Can I get a “wow”?!? I wrote that story back…