BY RICK WINSTON Editor’s note: Back in 2017, at the start of Trump’s first term, I put together for this blog a pair of Trump YouTube playlists (see here and here, but, alas, some links no longer work). My second list included Bob Dylan’s anthem “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” performed here at the Obama White…
BY LEILA KAWAR At the core of the Coalition for Action in Higher Ed (CAHE) April 17 National Day of Action was the insight that addressing the ongoing crisis in higher education requires inclusive, action-based strategies. The extraordinary combination of online and on-the-ground programming that—through CAHE’s initiative—came together over eleven hours on April 17 generated…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Northwestern AAUP chapter persuaded the faculty assembly to overwhelmingly vote in favor of its resolution at the April 21 meeting calling upon Northwestern’s leaders to fight for academic freedom, retract the administration’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism that punishes criticism of Israel, defend the…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY On April 8, our school had a gun incident that involved a student making threats against the campus. But this story isn’t about that scary situation. It’s about my school administration’s epic communications failure about the incident. Incidents like this show why principles of academic freedom and shared governance matter. It took…
BY BROOKE LOBER, ELI MEYERHOFF, AND EMILY SCHNEIDER The climate on American university campuses is dangerous. Administrators ban protests for Palestinian rights. Immigration and Customs Enforcement snatches students off the streets. The Trump administration revokes hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for research. And all this is done in the name of protecting Jewish…
BY DAVID PALUMBO-LIU After Columbia University’s craven and apparently futile acceptance of all the conditions Donald Trump set before it to even start a conversation about getting its federal funding back, Harvard’s recent refusal to let the federal government insinuate itself into the core functions of higher education was a welcomed moment we should all…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following statement is republished here with permission of its organizers. The statement with a regularly updated list of signatories may also be found here. As Jewish faculty and staff at Northwestern University, we write today to defend the values of academic freedom, pluralism and independence that animate Northwestern and undergird…
BY THE AAUP We are excited to announce the publication today of the AAUP’s Policy Documents and Reports, known as the Redbook. It’s an indispensable resource for promoting sound academic practices on your campus. Bringing together foundational statements on academic freedom, shared governance, and other essential topics with new and revised documents—many with statistical or…
BY RAPHAEL SASSOWER As the national academic landscape makes clear, academic freedom battles are often diverted to or fought in the budgetary arena: Money talks! To ensure that the mission of the university is not overlooked by our administrators, our AAUP chapter has demanded greater transparency in budgetary decision-making processes. Instead, we receive annual notices…
BY ALLISON GAINER As faculty, we often find ourselves balancing pedagogy, policy, and student support. For students with disabilities, that support sometimes includes service dogs. These working animals are not pets or conveniences. They are medically necessary tools for independence, mobility, and safety. And yet, many of us have never been trained to support students…