BY CHRISTOPHER NEWFIELD The following is reposted with permission from the Remaking the University blog. Christopher Newfield is professor of literature and American Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. To read his previous post on the cash-for-admission scandals see Bleeding Meritocracy: Responding to the Admissions Scandal as Outrage Fades. The admissions scandal…
BY HANK REICHMAN Scholars from Singapore and around the world, including several prominent American professors, have expressed concern over the Asian city-state’s proposed legislation against internet ‘fake news’, which they say could have unintended consequences for academic freedom and research. Such a precedent could lead to “even wider restraints on global scholarly research and knowledge…
BY HANK REICHMAN Readers of this blog are undoubtedly well aware of the nefarious “Professor Watchlist,” sponsored by the right-wing Turning Point, USA. The list is but the latest in a long string of blacklisting efforts aimed at silencing faculty members. It debuted shortly after the 2016 election, claiming to identify professors who promote “leftist…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Trump Administration’s decision to ban Omar Barghouti from coming to America is an alarming attack on academic freedom and free speech. Barghouti, a co-founder of the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement, was scheduled to speak at Harvard and New York University but the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) ordered…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday, April 10, I had the honor of appearing on Democracy Now!, the daily, global, independent news hour hosted by award-winning journalists Amy Goodman and Rutgers University professor Juan González to discuss my new book, The Future of Academic Freedom. You can watch it here:
BY GWENDOLYN BRADLEY Faculty salaries barely budged when adjusted for inflation during the 2018-2019 academic year, according to the AAUP’s 2018-19 Faculty Compensation Survey. Average salaries for full-time faculty members at US colleges and universities are 2 percent higher in 2018-19 than they were in the preceding academic year, but with prices in the economy…
BY MONICA BLACK, BEN LEE, AND MARY MCALPIN Ever since students at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, began organizing an annual event called Sex Week, state lawmakers have been trying to kill it. According to the students who organize it, the aim of Sex Week, which ran from March 31 to April 5 this year,…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Two cancelled speeches last week, at Beloit College and Columbia University, have brought new attention to the issue of censoring speakers. At Beloit College, a speech by Erik Prince was cancelled out of fear of student protesters. At Columbia University, a panel about censorship in Turkey was cancelled because the administration…
BY AARON BARLOW One of the more depressing articles I’ve read recently—outside of politics—is Kevin Carey’s “The Creeping Capitalist Takeover of Higher Education” for Huffington Post. He writes: Instead of students receiving a reasonably priced, quality online degree, universities are using them as cash cows while corporate middlemen…
BY JULIE SCHMID As we move into the final months of the academic year, I wanted to share updates about three recent wins. These three successes emphasize the power of collective action and solidarity—among chapter members; among the national AAUP and our state conferences and chapters; and among faculty, students, and the community—when we all…