Notions of Privilege and Basic American Values

Aaron Barlow’s post today concerns legislation proposed in North Carolina that will uniformly increase teaching loads at all public universities to four courses per semester. I might look at this kind of legislation somewhat differently if the Far Right was interested in funding public higher education at any reasonable level and some legislators were, in…

Teach or Perish

If the dateline on this story had been a day later, I would not believe it (hat tip to Diane Ravitch for linking to it): “Bill would require all UNC professors to teach heavy course load.” Apparently, a state senator named Tom McInnis from Richmond, NC has introduced a bill to that effect: “There is no…

April Fools Day, in a Classroom

What I am about to recount did not occur on April Fool’s Day, but the story is in that vein. When I was in graduate school, another graduate teaching fellow asked me to participate in a hoax. In her freshman composition class, the assigned readings were the script of Orson Welles’s infamous radio dramatization of…

April Fools Day, with the Library of Congress and with Dr. Swift

For April Fools Day, the Library of Congress has provided materials related to the following hoax to educators who wish to make use of their digital collections of primary sources: “April Fools Day pranks are usually fairly short term: An entire class simultaneously falls asleep or a teacher assigns a forty-page essay due the next…

Steven Salaita Resists University of Illinois Effort to Dismiss Civil Rights Lawsuit

Tenured Associate Professor Steven Salaita, last night, filed a response to the University of Illinois motion to dismiss his civil rights lawsuit against the Board of Trustees, University of Illinois officials and donors. The response lays out the underlying constitutional, contractual and tort-based claims at the heart of the lawsuit and addresses how the complaint alleges…

Choosing the Right Path to College

While the notification date to college applicants varies dramatically depending upon the path selected for admission consideration, the notifications will largely be complete by April 1, even at the most selective schools. It’s at this point that the ball shifts to the applicant’s court. Until the notification, most of the applicant’s time, and corresponding anxieties,…

“James, do whatever you want to do.”

That’s how NYU Journalism professor Jay Rosen responded to James O’Keefe in 2011. Given the context, it seemed an appropriate response. Personally, I was a little annoyed by the timing: My article on O’Keefe and fellow right-wing pseudo-journalist Andrew Breitbart was already complete and ‘typeset’ for News with a View: Essays on the Eclipse of Objectivity…