POSTED BY KELLY HAND The AAUP released an open letter to US congressman Jeff Fortenberry letting him know that threatening and harassing faculty members is unacceptable after Fortenberry’s chief of staff harassed Ari Kohen, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. After Kohen “liked” on Facebook an image of an altered…
BY MICHAEL C. BEHRENT Last year, North Carolina became one of the first states to adopt a so-called “campus free speech” law (S.L. 2017-196). This law, like similar legislation that has been proposed or approved in other states, was drafted by a partisan conservative think-tank and supported by sympathetic legislators. Premised on the dubious proposition…
This past weekend, I was invited by the National Association of Scholars to speak on a panel at their conference at Grove City College, “Capitol Ideas: Government Overreach and Higher Education.” As a progressive, I probably agreed with the title about fearing government overreach in higher education more than almost anyone there, and I spoke…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH One of the basic logical fallacies that composition teachers warn their students to avoid is argument by analogy. No one has ever accused California Governor Jerry Brown of being uneducated or unintelligent. But, all too often, Progressives have latched onto their own harebrained ideas about “reforming” education. Of course, political brainstorms…
BY JOHN K. WILSON I have a letter to the editor in tomorrow’s Chicago Tribune, in response to a July 11 editorial by the Tribune which glorified the University of Illinois while urging lawmakers to exert more control over other colleges to force them to cut costs and programs. I wrote: The Tribune Editorial Board advises more…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL When its trustees shut down Mount Ida College, they unleashed a debacle that resulted in a torrent of criticism and considerable finger pointing. Rejecting a merger or acquisition (depending on the characterization) with Lasell College, the trustees opted to sell the campus to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, whose leadership…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH In Ohio, the AAUP was historically apolitical. Then, in 2011, Senate Bill 5 was passed, completely eliminating our collective-bargaining rights in the space of just a few weeks at the beginning of John Kasich’s first term as governor. At the state and chapter levels, we mobilized to support the referendum that…
POSTED BY THE AAUP Last week, the AAUP shared a new toolkit of resources about legislation on campus free speech. Media scrutiny has blown the issue of free speech on campus out of proportion relative to more widespread and urgent problems in higher education. Bills purporting to protect free speech on campus would have the…
BY JOHN K. WILSON This afternoon (Thurs. April 19 at 1:30pm ET), AAUP political organizer Monica Owens will be holding a Facebook Live event about the threat from legislating free speech. It’s an important time to address these issues, especially since South Carolina has become the first state to pass the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, which…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Several days ago, Sasha Ingber contributed an article to the Washington Post on how “Trump’s Presidency Has Prompted a New, Nationwide College Course on Why Democracies Collapse.” The course has been developed by Robert Balir, an assistant professor of political science at Brown University. A specialist in post-conflict security in Africa,…