POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Earlier today I was privileged to participate in a stimulating discussion of free speech on campuses on the radio call-in show “Your Call” on KALW-FM in San Francisco. Participating in the call were moderator Renee Kemp; Samantha Harris, director of policy research at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE);…
BY JOHN K. WILSON On Friday June 2, the Evanston Public Library held a hearing that may lead to the firing of librarian Lesley Williams this week. Her alleged crime? Posting a message on her personal Facebook page criticizing the library’s efforts at racial equity. This makes it an important case in the wake of…
BY ROBIN MEADE I can’t title this article “I Won” because I already used that title. But now I have won a $125,000 settlement and reinstatement after being fired for criticizing the administration of Moraine Valley Community College. The fact that I keep winning in court should provide everyone with hope and embolden those in…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On its website, PEN America has published an item on writers and artists detained and interrogated as a result of the Trump administration’s travel ban. The article includes the following anecdotes, the second of which involves a distinguished historian invited to speak at Texas A&M University: “The bestselling children’s book author Mem Fox,…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following letter by forty-eight US university presidents and chancellors was sent to President Trump on February 2. President Donald J. Trump The White House United States of AmericaDear President Trump: We write as presidents of leading American colleges and universities to urge you to rectify or rescind the recent executive…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH These lists are from an article written by Abby Jackson for Business Insider: The first chart indicates those institutions with the most currently enrolled students who are citizens of the seven predominantly Muslim nations covered by Trump’s ban: The second chart ranks the institutions by the loss of direct revenue that…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is a follow-up to my December 29 post, “Court Blocks Mandatory Drug Screening at State College.” Given the substantial reductions in state support very recently announced for the state colleges and universities in Missouri, the pursuit of this appeal does not seem an especially prudent allocation of institutional resources. The…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This is an “alert” issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists: Authorities in Washington D.C. should drop rioting charges against at least three journalists arrested while covering protests on the day of the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Police arrested Evan Engel, a…
BY MARJORIE HEINS Marjorie Heins is the author of Priests of Our Democracy: The Supreme Court, Academic Freedom, and the Anti-Communist Purge, a history of McCarthy era attacks on teachers and professors, of the Supreme Court’s initially acquiescent response, and of the Court’s eventual vindication of academic freedom in the 1967 Keyishian case. By Marjorie…
BY JOHN K. WILSON January 23, 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Keyishian v. Board of Regents, perhaps the most important case defending academic freedom in the history of law (see the essay by Marjorie Heins today about the case). Five years ago, I interviewed Harry Keyishian via email for AcademeBlog…