BY ANTHONY DAVID VERNON What is proper duty? For Chinese philosopher Xunzi, proper duty included “the way of the ritual . . . and return to order.” Double booking breaks rituals and deviates from order. It is problematic for all parties, as we all have what Xunzi refers to as “a sense of duty” or…
BY WILLIAM D. ADAMS The following first appeared on Medium and is republished with the author’s permission. April 11, 2025 Only days after launching its attack on the Smithsonian Institution, the Trump administration and its DOGE shock troops came for the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Last week, NEH grant recipients were notified that all…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following resolutions from the Academic Council of the University of California Academic Senate and from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Academic Senate were published this week. Their calls for unity and action should be widely circulated and embraced. Academic Council Statement: The Defense of the University April 8, 2025 Higher…
BY DENISE L. DAVIS As we at Brown University wait for the other shoe to drop, we are mobilizing in support of the university’s principles, as expressed by President Christina H. Paxson, and urging the university administration to take an uncompromising stance when it comes to preserving free inquiry, ensuring the safety of non-US citizens…
BY AMIR HUSSAIN The Trump administration is trafficking in a grand narrative about American intellectuals: Universities are hiding “foreign aliens,” and outside agitators are disrupting campus operations in support of terrorist organizations. Scholars and students are being labeled as leftist protesters or, more brazenly, as so-called Hamas supporters and are being persecuted, detained, deported, and…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT Trump’s executive orders have been coming fast and furious, almost one a day. On March 27, with a stroke of his Sharpie, he promised to restore “truth and sanity” to our nation’s history—an interesting combination for a regime that has made lies the basis of its authority and vindictive narcissism the…
BY HANK REICHMAN Kenneth Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, which works to increase the serious study of human hatred, and ways to combat it. Before that he directed the Justus and Karin Rosenberg Foundation and before that he was for 25 years director of the American Jewish…
BY HANK REICHMAN The headlines tell the tale: “Trump Policies Push 75% of Scientists to Consider Leaving U.S.;” “More than 1,900 scientists write letter in ‘SOS’ over Trump’s attacks on science.” But it’s less a new story than a continuation of an old one, for the Trump regime’s war on science dates back at least…
BY ANNA MCCARTHY Academic life has never been more precarious. The Trump administration’s attack on research, on free speech, and on student activism—an attack on the core ideals of the university—builds on decades of economic and political assault on the higher education workforce. Weakening faculty governance has long been the goal of boards of trustees.…
BY FACULTY LETTER ORGANIZERS The open letter discussed below originated after a group of faculty began to share notes about how their universities were handling the challenges presented by the Trump administration and about the apparent lack of communication or coalition building across institutions. In response to escalating federal attacks on higher education, a national…