BY HANK REICHMAN When early last month the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees (IHL) appointed Glenn Boyce as the new Chancellor of the University of Mississippi, faculty and students were outraged. Boyce had been hired as a consultant to the search committee for the new chancellor and was never formally submitted as a…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last week I had the great pleasure of appearing on “The Politics Classroom,” a radio show and podcast on the University of Illinois at Chicago’s campus radio station, hosted by political science professor Kate Floros. We had a terrific conversation about academic freedom. And my thanks to Kate for the flattering title…
BY HANK REICHMAN When I began work earlier this year on guest-editing the new issue of Academe devoted to “academic freedom around the world,” I was motivated by the recognition that, as I put it in the editor’s note, “Scholarship today is global” and “threats to scholarship outside the United States inevitably affect scholarship here.” …
BY JENNIFER RUTH If you follow the news, you are already familiar with the controversy that erupted over a tweet by Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey. To recap: On October 4, Morey tweeted, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” The NBA is hugely popular in China. The Hong Kong protests decidedly are not.…
BY LORI ALLEN When the topic of “academic freedom” appears in the UK media, it is often buried in the education section or overlooked until left-leaning publications like the Guardian pick it up. There may be a public perception that academic freedom is a matter primarily for elites, a concern of professors and pontificators worried…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND The new issue of Academe—guest-edited by Henry Reichman, chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and a contributing editor for Academe Blog—takes a critical look at the mounting global assault on academic freedom. Articles focus on threats to socially engaged scholars abroad, attacks on gender studies in Europe…
BY ALFRED BABO Last June 1, 2019, a significant turn in Ivorian higher education went unnoticed. Indeed, it was probably the first time that the Federation of Students of Côte d’Ivoire (FESCI), a powerful and controversial union, was sponsored and officially supported by the Ivorian government—to which it does not have close ties—to organize its…
BY HANK REICHMAN In 2011 Yale University announced the establishment of a joint venture with the National University of Singapore, Yale-NUS, a four-year, fully residential undergraduate institution. The venture differs from overseas programs like NYU’s controversial Abu Dhabi campus (see here, here, and here) because it is ostensibly independent of Yale, offering its own degrees. …
BY FRANK BALDWIN The Hollywood Ten knew they were on a blacklist. The House Un-American Activities Committee held televised hearings to vilify screenwriters and other cinema professionals and cited them for contempt of Congress. Studio executives fired the group in a press release, a warning to the film industry that subversives were not employable. Public…
BY CHRISTOPHER S. ROSE Christopher S. Rose is a postdoctoral fellow with the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. His 2019 dissertation, “On the Home Front: Food, Medicine, and Disease in World War I Egypt,” examines the impact of the war on the Egyptian civilian population. The following, which began…