Einstein on Academic Freedom and Political Inquisitions
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Albert Einstein was a member of the AAUP from 1935 until his death in 1955. The following questions about academic freedom and political inquisitions were posed to Einstein in the 1950s, during the McCarthy era. They come from a document held in the Shelby White and Leon Levy Archives Center at…
On Outside Speakers and Academic Freedom, Part II
BY HANK REICHMAN “The speech we must protect most forcefully is not the speech we hate the most, but the speech that is most endangered.” — CUNY Professor of History Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) on Twitter, April 25 “The countless fruitful discussions that happen all the time in college classrooms don’t grab headlines.” — UW Milwaukee…
The First Amendment on Campus event June 14 at the Newseum
BY JOHN K. WILSON On Wednesday, June 14, 3-5pm at the Newseum in Washington DC, the Newseum and the AAUP are holding a special preview event for the AAUP annual conference, “The First Amendment on Campus: Freedom of Speech and the Press in Higher Education.” In order to attend this free event (which is open…
What John Wilson Gets Wrong About Secret Recording
BY HANK REICHMAN In a recent post to this blog, John K. Wilson took issue with the AAUP’s recommendation “that administrations and elected faculty bodies work jointly to establish institutional regulations that prohibit the surreptitious recording of classroom discourse or of private meetings between students and faculty members.” The recommendation came in the context of…
Why Did CSU Fresno Cancel a Politically Controversial Search?
BY HANK REICHMAN On May 21, Professor Vida Samiian, Director of the Middle East Studies program at California State University, Fresno, and a former dean of humanities at the school, wrote an open letter announcing that she would not complete the remainder of her appointment in the CSU’s Faculty Early Retirement Program in protest of…
Why the AAUP Is Wrong about Secret Recordings
BY JOHN K. WILSON Earlier this year, the AAUP issued a statement against targeted online harassment of faculty. This statement has added significance with the news that Princeton professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has cancelled several speeches after receiving death threats in the wake of a commencement speech in which she called Donald Trump “a racist, sexist…
“I Was a Threat Because I Wouldn’t Be Quiet”
BY LAURA MARKWARDT An investigative report released today by the AAUP concludes that the administration of Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky, fired Erlene Grise-Owens, a long-serving professor of social work, in blatant violation of academic freedom and due process. The report finds that Spalding’s administration abruptly terminated Professor Grise-Owens’s tenured appointment because she criticized the administration’s…
Journal of Academic Freedom Seeks New Editor
BY KELLY HAND The AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom—the only journal dedicated exclusively to scholarship on academic freedom and its relation to shared governance, tenure, and collective bargaining—is searching for a new faculty editor. This online publication includes scholarship from the perspective of various academic disciplines and is international in its scope. If you are a faculty member…
The Tennessee Legislature’s Defense of Campus Free Speech
BY JOHN K. WILSON Three months ago, I attacked a bill in the Tennessee legislature, the “Tennessee Freedom of Speech on College Campus Bill,” and wrote that it was “a disaster for everyone. It imposes bizarre and burdensome regulations that administrators will struggle to understand and implement. It takes away from professors the ability…