BY HANK REICHMAN This past weekend the San Francisco Chronicle carried an article reporting that a white emeritus professor of economics at California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) — where I taught for twenty-five years before fully retiring in 2015 — “is teaching racist theories on intelligence. Students and faculty want him out.” A petition…
BY ASHLEY DENNIS This book review was originally published in Black Perspectives, the blog of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS), and is republished with their permission. As the U.S. reckons with systemic racism in the wake of global protests over the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, reparations for Black people has…
BY CATHRYN BAILEY I once had a faculty colleague who could be as blunt as a barbell, as direct as a laser beam, and as unblinking as an ancient tortoise. A middle-aged woman of color, she eschewed the feminine niceties required to earn her likability badge in the raced and gendered game of social and…
BY JOHN K. WILSON On October 17, about 300 Northwestern University students and supporters held a protest in Evanston as part of their ongoing efforts to abolish the campus police department and enact other reforms. During the protest, a campus banner was burned, various buildings and even murals in town were tagged with messages including…
BY GRAHAM A. PECK Graham Peck is the Wepner Distinguished Professor of Lincoln Studies in the Department of History at the University of Illinois at Springfield. The following is a modified version of the Wepner Distinguished Professor Investiture Lecture, delivered Thursday, September 24, 2020. A video of the address is available here. In 2017, I…
BY AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION AND HIGHER ED ASSOCIATIONS The AAUP was one of fifty-five higher education associations that signed a letter sent on September 30 by the American Council on Education (ACE) to the US Department of Education secretary Betsy DeVos opposing the department’s announcement that it would investigate Princeton University after university president…
BY SOCIOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION PRESIDENTS The following letter was sent on September 30 by presidents of sociological organizations to express concern about threatened consequences for two sociology professors who participated in September 8 and 9 #Scholarstrike activities. It was initially signed by twelve presidents, and an additional president signed on later. TO: President Michael K. Young…
BY DISARM PSU At Portland State University, students, faculty, staff, and our broader community have been engaged in seven years of organizing, protesting, and collaborating under an umbrella coalition called “Disarm PSU” since the 2014 decision by PSU to transform its Campus Public Safety Office (CPSO) into a sworn and armed police force. While many…
BY JENNIFER RUTH It sounds like a bad joke. The Department of Education (DOE) has apparently launched an investigation into Princeton University. Why? Because President Eisgruber said that racism is embedded in the university structures and its history. “Based on its admitted racism, the U.S. Department of Education is concerned Princeton’s nondiscrimination and equal opportunity…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday AAUP President Irene Mulvey issued a statement condemning President Trump’s attack on critical race theory as “a naked attempt to politicize our national reckoning with racism and a new escalation in the assault on expert knowledge.” This was not, however, Trump’s only such attempt. Less than 48 hours after tweeting that…