BY JONATHAN FEINGOLD Earlier this month, President Biden delivered the COVID-19 speech we needed. As the Delta variant surges, Biden offered concrete policy and commanding leadership. He announced wide-ranging initiatives to maximize vaccinations, curb transmission, and protect our kids. He was also unifying but blunt, calling out “elected officials actively working to undermine the fight…
BY PRANAV JANI 1984 meets Professor Umbridge. That’s what came to my mind when I heard of two bills currently being debated in the Ohio legislature, HB 322 and 327. Seeking to define a category of “divisive concepts” that Ohio children and adult students in college need to be protected from, these bills legitimize the…
BY ELLEN SCHRECKER Every once in a while, when some new threat to civil liberties or violation of academic freedom surfaces, I get a call from a journalist, documentary filmmaker, or fellow academic asking me to compare the current situation to McCarthyism. ”Can it happen again?” “Is what’s happening today as bad as it was…
BY KEVIN MCGRUDER In 2021, the movement against the purported teaching of Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools and public colleges dominated public discussions in many communities and has now resulted in legislation against the teaching of “divisive concepts” in many states. It is a matter of public record, as Jennifer Ruth noted here, that…
BY JENNIFER RUTH “The neutral ground” is what New Orleanians call the grassy median that runs down streets like St. Charles and Carrollton avenues. The Neutral Ground is also the title of the excellent new documentary on PBS by comedian C.J. Hunt. Hunt’s subject is the controversy over confederate monuments and his title references one…
BY PETER LAURENCE In May 2021, fifteen South Carolina state representatives introduced a bill into the SC General Assembly to condemn and prevent the teaching of critical race theory. Now with twenty sponsors, H. 4325 resides in the House Committee on Education and Public Works, awaiting further discussion. Expansive in its attack on educators and…
BY JENNIFER RUTH Legislative acts against the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT) are blatant and egregious violations of academic freedom, as academic freedom has been defined by the AAUP from its inception in 1915. How did we get to this moment in which the state’s attempted interference in education rivals the McCarthy Era in…
BY JULIA SCHLECK The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so…
BY MATT COHEN NB: I write this post as an individual, but our AAUP chapter has issued a statement about the resolution proposed to the University of Nebraska Board of Regents regarding Critical Race Theory. Critical Race Theory, the latest elixir of Rightist fear and rage, has become a political chip in the Republican primary…
BY JENNIFER RUTH The far right has made critical race theory (CRT) one of the most polarizing issues in a deeply polarized country. And this is precisely what the architect of the anti-CRT media campaign Christopher Rufo intended. In March, he tweeted: We have successfully frozen their brand—’critical race theory’—into the public conversation and…