BY JOHN K. WILSON I interviewed Ian Reifowitz via email about his new book which is being published today, The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh’s Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Ig Publishing). Reifowitz is Professor of Historical Studies at SUNY-Empire State College and also the author of Obama’s America: A…
BY AARON R. HANLON Aaron R. Hanlon is Assistant Professor of English at Colby College The public is right to care about what kinds of values our institutions of higher education are (and are not) imparting to students. People are likely to disagree over which particular values they think colleges and universities ought to emphasize—in…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH At a House committee hearing on “The Need for Leadership to Combat Climate Change and Protect National Security,” Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie was questioning former Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry is regarded as an expert on climate change who helped to develop the Paris climate accord. He has criticized President Trump…
BY CHRISTOPHER NEWFIELD The following is reposted with permission from the Remaking the University blog. Christopher Newfield is professor of literature and American Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. As it enters week 3, the promising new series Operation Varsity Blues is running out of gas. The story of wealthy white folks…
BY JOHN K. WILSON At 4:07pm ET today, Donald Trump signed an Executive Order imposing “free inquiry” on college campuses. In reality, this hypocritical order by an open enemy of free expression is nothing but a political tool that Trump wants to use to silence his ideological opponents. The Executive Order requires public colleges to…
POSTED BY JOHN K. WILSON Last week University of Chicago president Robert Zimmer wrote a letter, later posted online, to the University of Chicago community about President Trump’s proposed executive action addressing free speech issues on college and university campuses. To: Members of the University Community From: Robert J. Zimmer Subject: Federal Action Regarding Free…
BY MARIAH QUINN The AAUP and eleven other groups issued a statement after President Trump announced in a March 2 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference that he would soon issue an executive order denying federal research funds to colleges and universities that do not “support free speech.” Read the full statement. President Trump’s…
BY MARTIN KICH In this series, I have highlighted headlines that are cleverly expressed, making use of puns, irony, figurative language, or unexpected word choices to grab a reader’s attention. Not surprisingly, the Trump administration has so unabashedly flouted all sorts of political conventions that headline writers have felt freer to write headlines that during…
BY JEFFREY SOMMERS The following open letter to the chancellor, provost, and faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) is reposted by permission from the blog of the UWM AAUP chapter. Jeffrey Sommers is Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies and Global Studies at UWM. Dear Chancellor Mone, Provost Britz, and Colleagues, I could…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday the welcome news arrived that scandal-ridden Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke would, as previously hinted, be departing his post by year’s end. The announcement came just days after release of a scathing 38-page report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Science under Siege at the Department of the Interior (DOI), which…