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 On July 6, the Trump Administration reached yet another new low in bigotry and incompetence, by decreeing that it will deport international students at colleges that choose to protect their students and faculty with online courses in the midst of a deadly pandemic. ICE announced, “The U.S. Department of State will…
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…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The document below, “Recommendations for UC Policing,” was approved by the Academic Council of the University of California (UC) system on June 24 and forwarded by Academic Council Chair Kum-Kum Bhavnani to UC President Janet Napolitano on June 29. In the UC system each of the ten campuses, known as divisions,…
BY ANNE SISSON RUNYAN The author was one of three 2020 recipients of the AAUP’s Georgina M. Smith award, which is given to those who have provided exceptional leadership in a given year in improving the status of academic women or in academic collective bargaining and, through that work, improved the profession in general. Because award…
BY THE COMMITTEE ON COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY GOVERNANCE The AAUP released today the following statement by the AAUP’s Committee on College and University Governance. In response to growing concern over unilateral actions taken by governing boards and administrations during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Committee on College and University Governance affirms that the fundamental principles and…
BY JOHN K. WILSON California’s Leonard Law, passed in 1992, is unique in the country: It requires private universities to protect some elements of the First Amendment just like a public university. Last month, the Stanford Daily wrote about the Leonard Law controversy on campus, focusing on the Stanford College Republicans and their claim that…
BY RACHAEL LEHMAN The most important relationship in education is between student and educator (we’ll use the terms professor, faculty, and teacher interchangeably). From the pre–K to doctoral levels, education today is a vestige of colonialism imbued with white supremacy and patriarchy. BIPOC students experience the negative impacts disproportionately of this colonized education system, but…