BY THE BERKELEY FACULTY ASSOCIATION It is expected that the University of California Board of Regents will announce the appointment of a new Chancellor of the Berkeley campus on April 10. On April 1, in anticipation of this appointment, the Berkeley Faculty Association posted the following open letter. UPDATE 4/10: The Regents have announced the…
On April 17, higher ed unions, AAUP chapters, and student organizations across the U.S. are coming together for a national day of action to fight back against the coordinated assault on teaching and learning, and to mobilize for a system of higher education that serves the public good. Our aim is not just to beat…
BY JOHN K. WILSON On March 27, 2024, Texas governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order compelling “all Texas higher education institutions” to “update free speech policies to address the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses and establish appropriate punishments, including expulsion from the institution,” ensure that “groups such as the…
BY LAUREN GUTTERMAN AND LISA L. MOORE On February 22nd, 2024, Dr. Paige Schilt, a social worker, author, and former lecturer and staff member at the University of Texas at Austin, was scheduled to give a talk entitled “A Queer Path to Leadership: Finding a Mentor to Help You Succeed in Higher Education.” It was…
We are posting this March 21 letter from the executive committee of the University of Virginia AAUP chapter with the chapter’s permission. James Ryan, UVa President Ian Baucom, UVa Provost Deans, UVa Schools Michael Kennedy, Chair Faculty Senate Amanda Flora, Chair General Faculty Council Dear Colleagues, The University of Virginia (UVa) Chapter of the American…
BY MARK S. JAMES Last August, my colleague wrote about how our university’s leadership has embraced a top-down corporate model as the way of running the university, and he proceeded to describe various instances when they have ignored shared governance and threatened academic freedom. This trend has continued unabated. The most recent example of this…
BY DANIEL A. SEGAL At a moment when the Israeli assault on Gaza has destroyed every university that had existed in Gaza, and the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement again calls on academics outside of Palestine to support the nonviolent strategy of institutional academic boycotts, it is time for the AAUP to reconsider…
BY BILL V. MULLEN A dangerous and broadly worded bill making faculty vulnerable to termination for not conforming to a state legislature’s definition of political diversity will likely be voted on by the Indiana state legislature on Tuesday, February 27th. Senate Bill 202 mandates that in order to receive tenure faculty must demonstrate that they…
BY HANK REICHMAN On Monday, February 26, I’ll be talking about the AAUP’s recent special investigation report, “Political Interference and Academic Freedom in Florida’s Public Higher Education System,” online with John A. Douglass of the UC Berkeley Center for Studies in Higher Education. Here’s the Center’s description of the event: In their self-proclaimed “war on…
BY HANK REICHMAN I’m a historian of Russia by training, but I guess I didn’t realize that there’s apparently no double jeopardy rule, at least with respect to sentencing, in Russia. Turns out that I—and many others—celebrated too soon when back in December we learned of the release of renowned Marxist sociologist and university professor…