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…

German shepherd dog with lolling tongue in front of chain-link fence

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…

Singapore “Fake News” Law May Threaten Academic Freedom

BY HANK REICHMAN Scholars from Singapore and around the world, including several prominent American professors, have expressed concern over the Asian city-state’s proposed legislation against internet ‘fake news’, which they say could have unintended consequences for academic freedom and research.  Such a precedent could lead to “even wider restraints on global scholarly research and knowledge…

“Professor Watchlist” Goes International

BY HANK REICHMAN Readers of this blog are undoubtedly well aware of the nefarious “Professor Watchlist,” sponsored by the right-wing Turning Point, USA.  The list is but the latest in a long string of blacklisting efforts aimed at silencing faculty members.  It debuted shortly after the 2016 election, claiming to identify professors who promote “leftist…

The Barghouti Ban

BY JOHN K. WILSON The Trump Administration’s decision to ban Omar Barghouti from coming to America is an alarming attack on academic freedom and free speech. Barghouti, a co-founder of the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement, was scheduled to speak at Harvard and New York University but the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) ordered…