Since 1992 the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression at the University of Virginia has celebrated the birth and ideals of its namesake by calling attention each year to those who would censor free expression. Announced on or near April 13—the anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson—the Jefferson Muzzles are awarded as…
This essay originally appeared in Logos: a journal of modern society and culture. The first paragraph was edited to reflect subsequent revelations concerning the Association and the Great War. Howard Zinn died five years ago in 2010. The American Association of University Professors was founded 100 years ago in 1915 to defend academic freedom for professors…
Item 1 Marking the National Rifle Association’s 2015 Freedom Festival in Nashville To direct school staff on how to respond to a visitor who is carrying a visible firearm, a school district in Michigan has distributed the following flow chart: I would like to be able to say that one cannot help but feel…
Is this what it is like to be making a mess of your life? Where does it all lead? Can one turn that mess around? Those of us who teach in community colleges and at the lower end of American university hierarchies face students asking these questions daily. That’s not surprising: We often encounter people…
“Publish or perish” is a common expression in academia. PhD holders must achieve the required number of publications between the time of appointment to a tenure-track position and turning in the dossier to the Promotion and Tenure committee or risk restarting a grueling job search. The stress that this pressure to publish induces has brought…
All day the talking heads on cable news have been debating whether the new Indiana law protecting “religious freedom” is actually a bill sanctioning biased treatment of LGBT individuals. A number Far-Right mouthpieces have tried to mount a defense of the law and of Indiana Governor Mike Pence, whose inability either to provide any coherent…
The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice announced the indictment today of Graeme Phillip Harris for hanging a noose and an obsolete Georgia state flag with the confederate stars and bars over the iconic statue of James Meredith at the University of Mississippi. Mr Meredith integrated the Oxford, Mississippi institution in 1962, amidst klan-imposed death and…
Everyone seems to think that college is all about jobs. Even former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, in a column on his blog this past Sunday, “Why College Isn’t (and Shouldn’t Have to be) for Everyone,” writes, “all too often the jobs they land after graduating don’t pay enough to make the degree worthwhile.” That may…
Ohio State University is internally circulating a draft of a new policy on faculty intellectual property rights. The following summary of the main outlines of the lengthy and very detailed draft revision was published in an article in the Columbus Dispatch: “The proposal says that all intellectual property created by faculty, staff and students belongs…
If college campuses are to be safe spaces, the goal needs to be to make them safe for everyone—even faculty. With tenure reduced and enfeebled and secret investigations commonplace, I have seen seasoned professors tremble with fear. They feel unsafe and unsupported by administrators and staff and have seen how processes meant to protect can…