BY HANK REICHMAN In two remarkable statements issued recently scholars from more than thirty countries, including Germany, Israel and the U.S., have spoken out against efforts by the German government to restrict the academic freedom and free speech rights of artists and scholars suspected of supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian…
POSTED BY SARAH MINK Spring 2020 | Vol. 106, No. 2 The spring 2020 issue of Academe, inspired by the AAUP’s statement In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education, examines the complexities—conceptual, critical, structural, and political—of the production of knowledge. Joan W. Scott, professor emerita in the School of Social Science at the Institute for…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Like other blog posts by Academe Blog‘s contributing editors and guest bloggers, this blog post represents the opinion of the author and does not represent a policy position of the AAUP. Universities such as Purdue are making plans to re-open this fall, with president Mitch Daniels citing the “close to zero lethal…
BY AARON BARLOW Why are we professors so scared of having someone look over our shoulders? Do we really believe that having someone peek into our classrooms—or sitting in through a class—is a threat? Is our academic freedom going to disappear simply because someone is watching? When I was being interviewed by a dean for…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Because so many conferences and events have been cancelled, I wanted to provide some online events and resources dealing with academic freedom and free expression on campus. Below are some suggestions for content about campus free speech issues, including upcoming events, free online resources, recent presentations at conferences, and podcasts. (Note…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday the University of Wisconsin at Madison began instruction online, a move that the great majority of colleges and universities have made or are making in response to the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. Here’s what English professor Caroline Gottschalk Druschke told the Wisconsin State Journal about the move: “None of us are going…
BY JOEL BERKOWITZ We thought the process would be straightforward. As it turns out, things got twisted. More than once. It all started with a simple invitation. As president of my campus’s chapter of the AAUP, I invited Joerg Tiede, senior program officer and researcher for the national organization, to come to campus to give a presentation of…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN In December graduate student employees at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) began a wildcat grading strike, refusing to submit fall quarter grades until they get a salary increase. The university administration said that as many as 12,000 students had their grades withheld. Today the strike expanded as student…
BY JOHN K. WILSON When the Annals of Internal Medicine published an article last fall declaring no serious evidence linked eating red meat to health problems, it sparked enormous controversy and criticism from many experts in the field. Now, the critics are being attacked. In an open letter headlined, “Texas A&M Chancellor Calls on Harvard to…