“Positive Living” on The Future of Academic Freedom

BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier this week I discussed The Future of Academic Freedom with Patricia Raskin, host of the Internet radio show “Positive Living” on voiceamerica.com.  To listen to this interesting conversation go to https://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/114836/fiona-citkin-how-they-made-it-henry-reichman-academic-freedom/57810 You can also listen to the discussion as a podcast on iTunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/henry-reichman-academic-freedom/id421428770?i=1000437359914

Academic Capture Warning System

BY SAMANTHA PARSONS, DAVID RAPACH, AND BONNIE WILSON The Academic Capture Warning System (ACWS) is a repository of information on clear violations of well-accepted academic norms involving financial donations to institutions of higher education. Such violations jeopardize the independence and integrity of academic research. Key purposes of the ACWS are to: • raise awareness and…

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Controversial Conferences and Academic Freedom

BY SHERRYL KLEINMAN In late March 2019 at UNC–Chapel Hill, the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East and Islamic Studies held a conference titled “Conflict over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities.” The list of scholars, journalists, performers, artists, and films can be found here. On the first night of the conference, Tamer Nafar, a rapper, actor,…

aerial view of UMass Amherst Fine Arts Center

Republicans Call for Banning Event on Free Speech

BY JOHN K. WILSON The University of Massachusetts at Amherst is hosting an interesting event on May 4 called “Not Backing Down: Israel, Free Speech, and the Battle for Palestinian Human Rights.” The event will feature Roger Waters, Linda Sarsour, Patrisse Cullors, Marc Lamont Hill, Dave Zirin, and Vijay Prashad, and is being organized by…

In Defense of Jason Hill and His Critics

BY JOHN K. WILSON DePaul ethics professor Jason Hill has sparked controversy with an essay harshly denouncing Palestinians. You might think this is the point where we start talking about protesters demanding his firing, but the reality is quite different. One radio show host denounced the “DePaul weak-minded students calling for censorship of a respected…

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Responding to Conservative Watchdogs

BY MATTHEW BOEDY When some conservative media outlet contacts you, with a picture of a lecture slide or assignment from your course, implying a bias against their conservative agenda, do you respond? If so, how? I am not imagining a hypothetical scenario. The headlines of conservative websites such as Campus Reform and College Fix suggest…

Florida Survey Proposal Raises Academic Freedom Concerns

BY HANK REICHMAN Last year the AAUP’s Committee on Government Relations released a report, “Campus Free-Speech Legislation: History, Progress, and Problems,” which concluded that campus free-speech laws and academic freedom are “false friends.”  Nevertheless, such legislation continues to advance in several states.  Especially troubling is a proposal that has moved out of committee in the…

Middlebury College’s “Snowflake” Administration

BY HANK REICHMAN When I saw the headline this morning on Inside Higher Ed, “Another Speaker Unable to Appear at Middlebury,” I immediately thought, “Haven’t those students learned that shutting down speakers is not only wrong but counter-productive?”  Two years ago Middlebury students famously shouted down conservative speaker Charles Murray and a faculty member was…