BY HANK REICHMAN Shortly after my most recent contribution to this blog, “On Commencement Speakers,” was posted, John Wilson offered the following comment in response: I’ve never participated in a commencement and only attended one in my life, because I find them boring and silly. The commencement address is the only potential exception to this…
BY HANK REICHMAN Commencement season has come to a close for another year, so perhaps it is a good time to reflect on the sometimes thorny issue of the extent to which challenges to commencement speakers, especially those invited to receive an honorary degree, represent a threat to free speech or academic freedom. As Princeton…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT At the 2019 AAUP annual conference Joan W. Scott, professor emerita in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study and longtime member and former chair of AAUP’s Committee A, delivered a luncheon address on the theme of “Knowledge for the Common Good.” The full text of that…
BY JOHN K. WILSON I interviewed Ian Reifowitz via email about his new book which is being published today, The Tribalization of Politics: How Rush Limbaugh’s Race-Baiting Rhetoric on the Obama Presidency Paved the Way for Trump (Ig Publishing). Reifowitz is Professor of Historical Studies at SUNY-Empire State College and also the author of Obama’s America: A…
BY HANK REICHMAN The following is the report of the AAUP’s Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure, presented to the AAUP annual meeting in Arlington, Virginia, on June 15 and to be published in the annual AAUP Bulletin issue of Academe later this summer. Introduction In the past year Committee A reviewed important cases and…
BY SHANNAN H. BUTLER The following remarks were presented on Saturday, June 15, at the AAUP’s 105th annual meeting, which voted to place St. Edward’s University on the AAUP’s list of censured administrations. You can read the report of the AAUP’s investigating committee here. In all honesty, I do not wish to be here today. Please…
BY CORINNE WEISGERBER The following remarks were presented on Saturday, June 15, at the AAUP’s 105th annual meeting, which voted to place St. Edward’s University on the AAUP’s list of censured administrations. You can read the report of the AAUP’s investigating committee here. I stand here today to express my gratitude to the AAUP for…
BY STEVEN LUBET When the University of Alabama returned over $21 million to its largest-ever single donor, and removed his name from its law school, it either was or wasn’t because of his outspoken opposition to the state’s ultra-restrictive new abortion law. According to Hugh Culverhouse, Jr., “the administrators at the university [chose] zealotry over…
BY GWENDOLYN BRADLEY We are pleased to announce that the AAUP will be moving forward with organizational changes after affirmative votes at last week’s AAUP annual meeting and AAUP Collective Bargaining Congress regular meeting. Both bodies voted overwhelmingly to proceed with a package of changes that combines the AAUP-CBC and the AAUP. The AAUP-CBC will…
BY JOHN K. WILSON This afternoon, Oberlin College was hit by a jury with $33 million in punitive damages added on to the June 7 judgment of $11.2 million for defamation. (The punitive damages will probably be reduced to $22.4 million under state law, but perhaps $10 million in plaintiff legal fees will also be…