Day of Action for Xiyue Wang
BY HANK REICHMAN Princeton University graduate student Xiyue Wang, arrested by Iranian authorities for alleged espionage, has now been in prison for over 900 days (see previous posts on this case here and here). February 20 will be a “day of action” in support of the imprisoned scholar, which will include a “call-a-thon” and rally…
European Academies Defend Hungarian Academy of Sciences
BY HANK REICHMAN In December I posted “Another Assault on Scholarship in Hungary,” reporting that László Lovász, President of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences had informed an emergency assembly of the Academy about a move by the government to drastically cut the institution’s funding. As I reported, “Innovation Minister László Palkovics had explained why he…
Protecting Extramural Speech
BY KEITH E. WHITTINGTON Is it possible to go a month without a controversy about the extramural speech of a faculty member? Probably not. There are, after all, a lot of faculty out there, and they have greater unmediated access than ever before to put their views about matters both great and small before a…
Nunez Community College’s Dismissal of Professor Was Likely Retaliatory
BY NICHOLAS FLEISHER According to an AAUP investigative report released today, the most plausible explanation for the dismissal of a faculty member from Nunez Community College was that it occurred as a retaliatory measure, violating his academic freedom. Professor Richard Schmitt, a nontenured associate professor of English with twenty-two years of service at the institution,…
Turkey’s Ongoing Attack on Academic Freedom
BY JOHN K. WILSON Earlier today, a Turkish court sentenced an academic, Yonca Demir from Bilgi University, to three years in prison for the crime of signing a peace petition critical of the government. It marked the longest sentence yet given to the 1128 professors who signed a 2016 petition by Academics for Peace that angered…
Book Banning at Franciscan
BY JOHN K. WILSON The president of Franciscan University of Steubenville has openly announced that a book will be banned from being taught at the university, and all books at the university will be scrutinized to ensure that “scandalous materials” are prohibited. It’s a shocking case of censorship and a clear example of the suppression…
Corruption and Censorship at Chicago State University
BY ROBERT BIONAZ After four-plus years, our First Amendment lawsuit against the unethical practices of the lead defendant, former Chicago State University president Wayne Watson, finally ended with the school agreeing to pay $650,000 in attorney’s fees and damages. Additionally, Chicago State likely paid close to $1 million to the private law firm that defended…
In Defense of Peter Boghossian
BY JOHN K. WILSON Peter Boghossian, an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University, and the co-author of the infamous recent “Sokal Squared” hoax against academic journals, was “found by his institutional review board to have committed research misconduct,” according to Inside Higher Ed. Some people wrongly think that Boghossian is guilty of fraud…
In Defense of Satoshi Kanazawa’s Academic Freedom
BY JOHN K. WILSON Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at the London School of Economics, was having a quiet sabbatical, spending it as a visiting scholar at Northwestern University, until someone looked up his many controversial writings. Now a petition signed by more than 4,400 (and supported by the Daily Northwestern editorial board) is demanding “Ban…