BY ANTHEA BUTLER AND KEVIN GANNON Since 2014, scholars’ summers have been filled with the news of African Americans dying at the hands of police. Eric Garner. Mike Brown. Sandra Bland. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. George Floyd. Jacob Blake. But as we well know, African American deaths by police know no season, no break. Laquan…
BY MARYBETH GASMAN An English professor at Iowa State University threatened to discipline students who submit papers opposing abortion, the Black Lives Matter movement, or same-sex marriage. In response, administrators at Iowa State University required the professor to change the syllabus and issued a statement to media outlets: The syllabus statement as written was inconsistent…
BY DANIELLE FUENTES MORGAN Earlier today, Danielle Fuentes Morgan tweeted the following thread, which is posted with her permission. Morgan is an assistant professor of English at Santa Clara University, and the author of the forthcoming book, Laughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century (University of Illinois Press, Nov. 2020). Santa…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN On June 19th, 2020, University of Chicago President Robert Zimmer and Provost Ka Yee C. Lee sent an email to the University community on the occasion of Juneteenth inviting the University and its members to use the day to “learn and listen, to examine history, to challenge assumptions, and to explore…
BY JENNIFER RUTH Last week on Academe Blog, John Wilson argued that one idea proposed by Princeton faculty members who wrote a July 4 letter calling for anti-racist reforms is misguided. The signatories ask Princeton administrators to “constitute a committee composed entirely of faculty that would oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents,…
BY JOHN K. WILSON More than one hundred professors at Princeton have signed a letter proposing reforms in the wake of Black Lives Matter. The letter contains a lot of good ideas (which I suspect is what the signers support), but unfortunately it also has one particularly bad idea: “Constitute a committee composed entirely of…
BY MICHAEL A. DOVER Recently Danielle Smith, executive director of the Ohio Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, asked, “If you only have fifteen minutes to talk to a brand-new-to-the-topic mostly wealthy, white audience about racism/white supremacy culture and how this plays out in the organizations they lead . . . what would…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Jonathan Zimmerman has an essay today attacking the 1619 Project, and since InsideHigherEd has eliminated comments on its articles, I wanted to discuss it here. Zimmerman is obviously right when he writes that “we must also avoid imposing a singular interpretation or ideology that will prevent — not promote — a…
BY MEREDITH McCOOL When I first heard Stephanie O’Neill’s NPR story “Coronavirus Has Upended Our World. It’s OK to Grieve,” it helped me consider the range of emotions I was experiencing. Stress from the sudden changes. Disappointment from missed opportunities. However, the full weight of grief did not hit me until I began to consider…
BY THE FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY FACULTY WELFARE COMMITTEE/AAUP Alumni at Fairfield University organized around the hashtag #BlackStagsMatter after two statements from university administration in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and Juneteenth did not directly address the need for concrete changes or the Black Lives Matter movement. Many of the alumni had been involved…