BY DANIEL MORRIS On June 11, 2021, the Purdue Board of Trustees passed a civics literacy requirement for undergraduates despite opposition from the faculty senate. Placed in the context of what happened at the University of North Carolina in April, when, as Lindsie Rank reports, “the board of trustees refused to approve the faculty’s recommendation…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Tom Ginsburg, a professor at the University of Chicago, proposes institutionalizing academic freedom in an opinion essay for the Chronicle of Higher Education this past week: “Colleges must institutionalize the protection of academic freedom by devoting resources to training, establishing standards, and hearing complaints when norms are threatened.” According to Ginsburg,…
BY HANK REICHMAN In November 2017 the AAUP released a report on National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom, which decried “increasing restrictions on and threats to the global exchange of scientific research and the academic freedom of American scientists to interact with foreign colleagues,” especially those from China. In 2019, the AAUP…
BY CARY NELSON John Wilson has recently claimed that official anti-Zionist proclamations by academic departments are protected by academic freedom. “A statement is just a statement,” his Academe Blog post concludes, “It’s not an act of oppression.” Wilson was writing in opposition to my own June 3 essay in Inside Higher Education, “Is Academic Freedom…
BY AUDREY TRUSCHKE In early March 2021, I awoke to a social media barrage of misogynist and bigoted slurs, unhinged accusations, and threats to hurt me and my family. For a few days, I thought little about this. Since 2015, I have suffered online harassment from those who dislike my scholarship, especially a branch of…
BY JOHN K. WILSON In a June 9 essay for the Washington Post, Stanford professor Emily Levine attacked the AAUP’s 1915 Declaration of Principles as a “mistake” for failing to offer a “positive vision” of academic freedom. As the subhead for her essay puts it, “Linking academic freedom to tenure has led to an impoverished…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Former AAUP president Cary Nelson wrote an essay for Inside Higher Ed last week, arguing that departments issuing statements critical of the Israeli government are violating academic freedom and must be silenced: A department is an administrative entity, an arm of the university. Academic and professional standards for departments exist, such…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Cairn University has announced the elimination of the School of Social Work, prompting the following letter from the National Association of Social Workers: The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and its Pennsylvania Chapter have grave concerns about Cairn University’s sudden dismantling of its social work program because of University President…
BY JENNIFER RUTH The easiest way to attract eyeballs to a story about academia is to say that the sky is falling on academic freedom. But is this the most accurate way to frame what’s currently happening in higher education? In “Academic Freedom Is on the Ropes,” his recent article in The Chronicle of Higher…