BY HANK REICHMAN January 2018 marks thirty years since the Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier decision was handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court. On Wednesday, January 31, the Student Press Law Center (SPLC) will sponsor the first Hazelwood Day of Action — “a day to raise awareness about the Hazelwood decision, publicize its destructive legacy for student…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The following news release has been issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists: As U.S. President Donald Trump announces his “Fake Media” awards, the Committee to Protect Journalists names its global Press Oppressors—world leaders who use rhetoric, legal action, and censorship to try to silence their critics. The list features leaders…
JANUARY 14 PROPOSAL DEADLINE: In the past year, free speech on campuses has become a focus of contentious debate and increased media scrutiny. Campus communities—including administrators, faculty, and students—generally embrace the concept of free speech yet lack a clear consensus about its limits. The AAUP invites proposals for presentations at its annual conference on the state…
BY HANK REICHMAN Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos delivered a commencement speech at the University of Baltimore yesterday, sparking protests from students, faculty, and members of the community. According to the Baltimore Sun, “Several dozen graduates slowly rose in protest as she spoke. First, two women in the front row — including one whose graduation…
BY HANK REICHMAN Readers of this blog have probably already heard how the Trump administration has barred officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using a list of seven words or phrases in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget. According to the Washington Post, policy analysts were told of…
BY HANK REICHMAN Tennessee, North Carolina, and Wisconsin have already enacted comprehensive new campus speech laws based on model legislation proposed by the Goldwater Institute, which in critical respects defend free speech by attacking it. (I discussed this legislation previously in a section of one of my lengthy posts on outside speakers, under the subtitle…
BY HANK REICHMAN This summer the North Carolina Restore Campus Free Speech Act, passed earlier in the year by the state legislature, went into effect. Directly inspired by a proposal by the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank, the legislation’s premise is that free speech is under attack on American campuses. Among other provisions, the…
BY AARON BARLOW In the November 2017 issue of Australian Humanities Review, in an article entitled “The Roz Ward Case: Relections on Social Media, University Management and Free Speech,” Binoy Kampmark, a a Senior Lecturer in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, writes of the situation of…
BY JUDITH BUTLER Judith Butler is Maxine Elliot Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley and a member of the Berkeley Faculty Association and the AAUP. The following is the slightly edited text of remarks she delivered December 4 at a forum sponsored by the Berkeley Academic Senate, “Perspectives on Freedom…
BY HANK REICHMAN The following is from the November 22 edition of the Riverside Press-Enterprise: A U[niversity of] C[alifornia] Riverside student seen in a viral video grabbing a fellow student’s pro-Trump hat has been charged with misdemeanor grand theft. The charge against Edith Macias was filed Nov. 3, and a warrant for her arrest was granted…