BY DAVID M. RABBAN In the process of writing my recently published book, Academic Freedom: From Professional Norm to First Amendment Right (Harvard University Press, 2024), I increasingly realized that the AAUP’s treatment of academic freedom as a professional norm provides a revealing counterpart to the judicial development of academic freedom as a First Amendment…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY Amid our new national situation that officially began this week I hope readers of this blog find useful two books published this month.Asking you to forgive the self-promotion, I note from the start that I have chapters in both. The first book is about exile, specifically in higher education. The collection of…
BY HANK REICHMAN The American Federation of Teachers and its state affiliate, the California Federation of Teachers, have established a disaster relief fund to assist “displaced members and their families—our educators and school staff, pre-K through college, in Southern California.” In an email to members, AFT President Randi Weingarten and CFT President Jeff Freitas wrote,…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The new year brings a wide range of different events related to academic freedom and deadlines for opportunities. Here’s a quick summary of some activities, and you are encouraged to add any additional opportunities (such as AAUP state conference and chapter events) in the comments. The AAUP’s Journal of Academic Freedom…
BY KATHERINE FRANKE The following is the text of a statement issued on January 10, 2025 by Katherine Franke, formerly the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia University. It is posted here with her permission For the last year and a half, as students at Columbia University and across the globe have protested…
BY RENEE L. BOWLING AND MATTHEW J. MAYHEW Some good news for the new year: Over three hundred campuses have partnered with the Interfaith Spiritual, Religious, and Secular (INSPIRES) Index to assess and improve their campus climates for diverse worldviews. Encouragingly, many campuses participate repeatedly in the annual research-based assessment and share their names or…
BY DANIEL A. SEGAL An opera based on Michael Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, with music by Mason Bates and libretto by Gene Scheer, had its world premiere at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music on November 15. The opera is glorious, and the performance, with every note sung and played…
POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH Please consider signing this open letter to the NYU administration. The text is below. Click the preceding link to access the form itself so you can add your name. On December 12, the NYU administration invited the NYPD to arrest two faculty members who were supporting students involved in a nonviolent protest…
BY ILANA GERSHON Academic freedom sounds so academic—especially for employees frustrated at work because they are answering workplace surveys all the time, and yet somehow their insights about how to make an office or a task function better are never taken seriously. Faculty members are not the only experts in their workplaces, so, if we…
BY MICHAEL ANTHONY LEWIS It’s been over a year since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel; we’re still witnessing Israel’s response. All this has made the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians front page (or front screen) news. We’re constantly hearing debates about the perennial issues that make up this conflict. I’m a CUNY faculty…