BY LORI ALLEN When the topic of “academic freedom” appears in the UK media, it is often buried in the education section or overlooked until left-leaning publications like the Guardian pick it up. There may be a public perception that academic freedom is a matter primarily for elites, a concern of professors and pontificators worried…
BY AARON BARLOW My colleague on this blog, and one of its founding editors, John K. Wilson, objects to my advocacy of gatekeeping at colleges and universities on free-speech grounds. A decade ago, I would have agreed with him. Now, I do not. Wilson has been consistent; I have not. Part of this is that…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND The new issue of Academe—guest-edited by Henry Reichman, chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and a contributing editor for Academe Blog—takes a critical look at the mounting global assault on academic freedom. Articles focus on threats to socially engaged scholars abroad, attacks on gender studies in Europe…
BY EMILY K HOBSON AND JENNA N. HANCHEY Since August 2017, when one of our students became a symbol of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) has seen a rise in white nationalist activity and hate speech on our campus. Yet, UNR is just one target in…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Today, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents passed new rules imposing harsh mandatory penalties on campus protesters who disrupt events. However, Gov. Tony Evers has declared that he plans to reject the new rules. That’s fortunate, because the new rules are quite terrible. In addition to the deplorable practice of…
BY HANK REICHMAN So now it’s come to burning books! The following account comes from The George-Anne, an independent student newspaper at Georgia Southern University, in Statesboro, Georgia: Students at Georgia Southern University burned a book, written by a New York Times contributor, after a Q&A session at her lecture became heated. Jennine Capó Crucet…
BY SHERRYL KLEINMAN Years ago a colleague scolded me for saying that UNC employees can’t have a union. Yes, they can, he said; it’s collective bargaining that’s proscribed. Rudy Fichtenbaum, national president of the AAUP, reminded us of that message this past weekend at the annual meeting of the North Carolina state AAUP conference, attended…
BY AARON BARLOW On Thursday evening, October 10, former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker will interview former Vice President Dick Cheney at Beloit College’s Eaton Chapel. I once knew the place well, having graduated from the college getting close to fifty years ago. Alumni like me, as well as a number of current students and faculty,…
BY AARON BARLOW In response to a recent post of mine, a professor wrote, “We are in a highly competitive and insecure field. How the heck do we rise together?” The competitive nature and insecurity of academia certainly have been exacerbated of the past decades (they were always with us); the only way that is…
BY ROBERT A. SCOTT The length of service for college and university presidents seems to be getting shorter and shorter. Almost weekly, and in some weeks more often, we read about a campus president being fired or put on leave. There are books on failed presidencies and books on leadership. Why are there failures? What…