BY HANK REICHMAN In my October Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture at the University of Michigan I argued that “the gravest challenge to academic freedom, one that exacerbates all others, [is] the steady erosion of the tenure system and the concomitant and explosive expansion of contingent, frequently part-time faculty employment,” what some have labeled “adjunctification.” Part-time…
BY HANK REICHMAN Today the AAUP released a statement, In Defense of Knowledge and Higher Education, prepared by the association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure in October and approved by the AAUP Council a month later. An email signed by me was sent to all AAUP members announcing the release this morning. The…
BY RACHEL IDA BUFF In case you missed it—and in case you have time to write over the winter break—we’re sharing this call for papers again. The February 3 submissions deadline is approaching quickly! It is remarkable how quickly all strata in public universities—staff, faculty, administrators, students—have grown accustomed to the saturation of…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following are excerpts from an article on the website of Reason magazine. To read the full piece go here. A vocational college in La Crosse, Wisconsin, spent more than $100,000 investigating one of its instructors for allegedly saying the local police department was “full of racists.” The school is Western…
BY ANTHONY ALESSANDRINI Not long after the election of Donald Trump, I shared a message in support of the right of undocumented students to pursue their education at City University of New York (CUNY), produced by a group of faculty and students and intended for inclusion on syllabi, to a faculty email list at Kingsborough…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN More than seven hundred scholars in Turkey have been prosecuted on criminal charges solely because they signed a peace petition calling for a halt to the fighting between Turkish forces and members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and an end to what they described as the “deliberate massacre and deportation…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday two new comments were posted to my piece of a week ago, “On Indiana University’s Response to Professor Rasmusen,” one by someone identified as “M,” who is apparently a sociologist, and the other by Professor Rasmusen himself. These, I believe, merit a response beyond what is available in the comments section,…
BY HANK REICHMAN Recently I was asked by a publication with an audience of college and university administrators what advice I might have about how to respond to attacks on faculty members’ extramural expression. I said this: “No matter how controversial the faculty member’s alleged expression may be, do not apologize for it or formally…
POSTED BY THE AAUP Increasingly violent clashes between student protesters and police at universities in Hong Kong raise grave concerns for the American Association of University Professors. On November 17, police laid siege to the campus of Hong Kong Polytechnic University, where they employed tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons against students, journalists, and…
BY HANK REICHMAN On October 30 I had the great honor and privilege of delivering the 29th annual Davis, Markert, Nickerson Academic Freedom Lecture at the University of Michigan. In 1954 the University of Michigan suspended and then terminated Professors H. Chandler Davis and Mark Nickerson, a tenured faculty member, and suspended but then reinstated…