The courageous effort on the part of the Historians Against the War to support, through an American Historical Association adopted resolution, academic freedom in the Occupied Territories was defeated January 9, 2016: 51 in favour, 111 against. Howard Zinn had the microphone ripped from him in 1969 by “distinguished” Asian scholar and A.H.A. president John K. Fairbanks, during…
The American Historical Association will be considering a resolution tomorrow at its annual meeting that condemns the absence of academic freedom for professors and students in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza. Some 126 historians signed the Historians Against the War (HAW) resolution. There has been organised protest against the resolution from groups…
Wheaton College officials are moving to fire tenured professor Larycia Hawkins because she made comments deemed too pro-Muslim by the administration. Hawkins’ trouble began when she announced that she would be wearing a hijab in solidarity with Muslims in the wake of Donald Trump’s call for banning Muslim immigrants. She declared, “I love my Muslim…
Among the most controversial and widely publicized controversies during the recent autumn of student unrest was that surrounding the incident at Yale University, where a residence hall adviser’s email about Halloween costumes prompted a national debate over the allegedly competing values of free speech and racial justice. I previously commented at some length on the…
Writing for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution [31 Dec. 2015: A,1], Nedra Rhone reports on the rise in organized student activism nationwide but especially in greater Atlanta. In the article “Today’s Student Activists: On Fire against a Gumbo of Issues,” she emphasizes that this new wave of student activism is targeting more than racism, addressing issues “from…
Yesterday, Joerg Tiede posted an excerpt from his new book about the AAUP’s 1915 Declaration of Principles. Tiede noted that although the Declaration was presented on December 31, 1915, the AAUP members did not vote to approve it until January 1, 1916. So on this, the centennial of the of the slightly misdated Declaration, it’s…
Since 1974 the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) has been the nation’s only legal assistance agency devoted exclusively to educating high school and college journalists about the rights and responsibilities embodied in the First Amendment and supporting the student news media in their struggle to cover important issues free from censorship. The SPLC provides free…
The open access movement in scholarly publishing has been widely and rightly praised, but its potentially negative implications for academic freedom are too often ignored. Today an opinion piece on Inside Higher Ed by Rick Anderson, associate dean for collections and scholarly communication at the University of Utah’s J. Willard Marriott Library, makes an important…
Today’s New York Times has a terrific op-ed piece by Michael Mann, who directs the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University and is a member of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Mann writes about the efforts of Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Committee on Science, Space…
I just learned this morning via a report on Inside Higher Ed that Erika Christakis, the associate master of one of Yale University’s residential colleges, has decided to stop teaching at the university, in part because of the continuing controversy over an email message she sent about Halloween costumes. Although some students have demanded her…