BY THE GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY AAUP CHAPTER From donor influence scandals to Supreme Court boondoggles, there’s never a dull moment at George Mason University (GMU). Now, once again, Mason students and faculty find themselves under attack. This time, Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin and his political appointees on Mason’s Board of Visitors are coming for our…
BY LOGAN JOHNSON In 2020, state bans on teaching “divisive concepts” in elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education began sweeping our nation. These prohibitions, referred to as educational gag orders, have put educators at risk of penalties if they incorporate materials and discussions in their classrooms regarding race, gender, LGBTQ+ identities, and minority narratives of United…
BY MICHAEL SCHWALBE Right-wing attacks on academia allege that modern secular universities are hotbeds of liberal orthodoxy and must be reformed to expand the range of views on offer to students. This past year, North Carolina Republican legislators and their appointed university trustees used this rhetoric to justify bypassing the faculty and creating a new…
BY KATHRYN KLEPPINGER AND GWU COLLEAGUES On Friday, August 11, administrators at West Virginia University announced an “academic transformation” that would cut 32 majors and possibly 169 faculty positions across the university, including the entire World Languages Department. Of particular concern to us, as language faculty at The George Washington University, was the misrepresentation of our…
BY TIMOTHY V. KAUFMAN-OSBORN For academic freedom’s advocates, there is much to like about the recent federal court ruling prohibiting Florida’s board of governors from enforcing the Individual Freedom Act. Especially gratifying are the rhetorical tropes Judge Mark Walker deploys in justifying this preliminary injunction. When the legislature adopted what Governor Ron DeSantis dubbed the…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY In the middle of the summer and in the middle of a pandemic, with an overwhelming majority of faculty and other community stakeholders voicing their objections to the plan and with few students weighing in on it, the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) voted on…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following statement by the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) was published on September 27. We all recognize that this is an extraordinarily difficult time for everyone in higher education. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased costs, yet state support is being cut back and enrollments…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Jonathan Zimmerman has an essay today attacking the 1619 Project, and since InsideHigherEd has eliminated comments on its articles, I wanted to discuss it here. Zimmerman is obviously right when he writes that “we must also avoid imposing a singular interpretation or ideology that will prevent — not promote — a…
BY AARON BARLOW One of my biggest fears for higher education brought on by the coronavirus crisis is that the confluence of forced online learning and a casualized faculty will be grasped by cash-strapped administrators to create a new and cheaper model for both course offerings and faculty employment. The new model makes tremendous sense…
BY AARON BARLOW What does it mean to be a college in the contemporary milieu? Can we continue with expectations now decades out of date? Can we continue to carry the deadwood, both administrators who are mired in models of education only applicable to expanding economies and professors who have refused to update pedagogy to…