Palestine Caucus Series and Update on CAHE’s Day of Action
Thursday 13 March, 1pm EST on Zoom BDS, International Law, and the Struggle for Rights and Representation on US Campuses Workshop Introduction and moderator: Karim Mattar (CAHE) Speakers: Omar Barghouti (Palestinian BDS National Committee) and Radhika Sainath (Palestine Legal) Registration: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/pyyCqnJvT1ain-vG4sJ5mg Please join CAHE on Thursday 13 March, 1pm EST for our BDS, International Law, and the…
Another Case of Anticipatory Obedience?
BY HANK REICHMAN As an alum of Columbia University (CC ’69) I received an email yesterday from the university’s interim president Katrina Armstrong responding to the Trump Administration’s decision to arbitrarily cancel some $400 million in federal grants “due to the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” The email…
The Two AAUPs
BY MATTHEW BOEDY In the past few days, as president of the Georgia conference of the AAUP, I have received two interesting comments from faculty in my state. The first was a plea to organize, rally, and protest more “to build collective strength.” The second was a plea to reform the AAUP because in the…
Former MLA Committee Members Ask, “Whither Academic Freedom?”
BY EVA CHERNIAVSKY AND AMIT R. BAISHYA We write as former members of the Modern Language Association (MLA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities (CAFPRR). Both of us resigned from CAFPRR after the refusal of the MLA Executive Council to advance Resolution 2025-1 to the organization’s delegate assembly. Responding to…
Why Tom Ginsburg’s Attack on the AAUP Is Wrong
BY JOHN K. WILSON I fully agree with the first line of Tom Ginsburg’s attack in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the AAUP: “Colleges are entering what is likely to be their greatest crisis since the McCarthy period.” Although I don’t work for or speak for the AAUP, I strongly disagree with the rest…
It Is Time to Censure Harvard and Time to Update the AAUP Censure Process
BY DANIEL A. SEGAL Recent actions by Harvard University’s administration merit the Association’s timely consideration and—absent a satisfactory response from Harvard—adoption of a censure of the university’s administration. Issuing this censure will require, however, that the Association adapt and expand its censure practices. Whereas the AAUP’s existing practices are limited to responding to harm to…
Harvard Alums Who Care About Academic Freedom Should Be Fuming
BY MARJORIE HEINS Harvard University’s announcement last month that it has adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism was a sufficiently serious blow to academic freedom at that hallowed institution that it motivated me, as a graduate of Harvard Law School, to submit a letter to Harvard, the alumni magazine. As Hank Reichman’s “Anticipatory…
Updates from Minnesota on the Raz Segal Affair
BY NATHANIEL MILLS It has now been almost a year since then-President Jeff Ettinger of the University of Minnesota intervened to revoke the properly vetted job offer to Raz Segal to serve as faculty director of UMN’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. This decision was denounced by the UMN chapter and national leadership of…
Making “The Palestine Exception: What’s at Stake in the Campus Protests?”
BY JENNIFER RUTH When Jan Haaken and I decided to make The Palestine Exception: What’s at Stake in the Campus Protests?, we couldn’t know how events here—much less in Gaza and the West Bank—would unfold. We had been talking about a film about the suppression of academic freedom in Texas and pivoted when some of the…