BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL In a recent Wall Street Journal article entitled “Baby Boomers Looking for Reinvention Try College — Again,” Douglas Belkin notes that “adult students have been a growing force at universities for more than a decade – mostly blue-collar workers or those pursuing advanced degrees focused on getting new skills.” Looking at…
BY JOERG TIEDE Over the course of the last year, targeted online harassment of faculty has emerged as a significant threat to academic freedom. Fueled by websites such as Professor Watchlist, Campus Reform, and College Fix, campaigns of threats and harassment are directed against faculty members for what they are reported to have said in…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Today, the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal of John McAdams in his lawsuit against Marquette University. Marquette suspended McAdams because he posted a criticism of graduate student instructor Cheryl Abbate on his personal blog, Marquette Warrior. Marquette issued a statement today: Marquette University welcomes yet another chance to…
BY HANK REICHMAN On Friday, January 19, the AAUP and the National Education Association (NEA) jointly filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31. In that case the ostensible plaintiff, Mark Janus, backed by the National Right to Work Committee and other anti-union groups, seeks…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Today on CBS Sunday Morning, the main cover story was devoted to “A war of words on college campuses.” It’s a completely one-sided war, if you listen to CBS, exclusively fought by leftists trying to silence conservatives. Unfortunately, this kind of media bias is common in covering political correctness, as it…
BY DAVID PALUMBO-LIU This essay by Stanford professor David Palumbo-Liu originally was published in the Stanford Daily. As anyone who has carefully read the U.S. Constitution knows, the right to free speech is a negative freedom — it protects us from any attempt by our government to stifle the expression of our ideas. The underlying…
BY HANK REICHMAN Issued in December, the AAUP’s report, “National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom,” examines politically motivated threats to scientific research, with emphasis on threats to climate science and on the initial actions of the Trump administration. As one of the authors of this report I learned how daunting, if not…
BY HANK REICHMAN A few days ago I posted to this blog an item about “The Case of Dr. Eugene Gu and Vanderbilt University Medical Center” in which I noted that Dr. Gu, a target of online harassment, is part of a group of Twitter users who, with the support of the Knight First Amendment…
BY UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE LECTURERS UNITED-AAUP Below is a press release issued today by the University of New Hampshire Lecturers United–AAUP. Contact: Catherine Moran Phone: 401-439-1067 Date: Jan 19, 2018 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Durham, NH— Some 160 years of teaching experience will be lost to the University of New Hampshire because of a round…
BY CHRISTOPHER NEWFIELD Christopher Newfield is Professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is the author of several books and many articles on higher education, including most recently The Great Mistake: How We Wrecked Public Universities and How We Can Fix Them. He serves on the advisory board for Academe. The…