POSTED BY MARTIN KICH I was doing some research on Trump jokes on late-night talk shows on television, and I happened across this observation in an article published by HuffPost Entertainment in August 2017. It is the short final paragraph of “Stephen Colbert Just Earned His Biggest Ratings Win over Jimmy Fallon,” an article written…
BY JOHN McNAY The Supreme Court’s attack on the labor movement last week by the five Republican justices was an unjust act rooted entirely in politics and having nothing to do with the Constitution. It is a right-wing fantasy to suggest that everything public union members do is a political act. With the increasing corporate…
BY JOHN K. WILSON I have a letter to the editor in tomorrow’s Chicago Tribune, in response to a July 11 editorial by the Tribune which glorified the University of Illinois while urging lawmakers to exert more control over other colleges to force them to cut costs and programs. I wrote: The Tribune Editorial Board advises more…
BY HANK REICHMAN Today’s Washington Post carries an article reporting that protesters upset by President Trump’s upcoming visit to the United Kingdom have launched a campaign to play Green Day’s “American Idiot” so many times that, by the time Trump arrives, the song will be the No. 1 single in the UK. According to the…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND The AAUP continues to call attention to the targeted harassment of faculty, which has followed an increasingly familiar pattern since the 2016 election. Right-wing websites such as Campus Reform and the Professor Watchlist publicize, and frequently distort, statements or social media postings by faculty members whose perspectives on racism and other topics they…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 4-2 ruling on Friday in favor of John McAdams against Marquette University has received an enormous amount of media coverage, and it deserves it. This is a very important decision protecting the contractual right of academic freedom (and the AAUP’s definition of it), which sets a precedent…
BY JONATHAN REES Way back when I was new to teaching I got into an argument with my then-department chairman about the textbook to assign in my American history survey course. I had my choice. He had a choice that he thought we should all assign because it was “the leading textbook in the field.”…
BY AARON BARLOW My embarkation on an academic career coincided with the rise of what we now call “social media,” then known as “the blogosphere.” At that time, many involved online cloaked themselves in anonymity in the mistaken belief that they couldn’t be discovered. That made me uncomfortable: There are many legitimate reasons for masking…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled in favor of John McAdams in his case against Marquette University, with the majority writing, “We conclude that the University breached the Contract by suspending Dr. McAdams for exercising his contractually protected right of academic freedom.” The Court ordered, “we hold the University to its…
BY JOHN K. WILSON As the 4th of July draws to a close, the day when Americans across the country believe they have a right to launch illicit explosives anywhere they want to, it’s an important time to talk about mistaken beliefs in fundamental rights. A New York Times news analysis last week titled, “How…