POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The following is an excerpt from an article from the Far-Right media service Newsmax: “People are proud to be saying Merry Christmas again,” the president posted on Twitter on Christmas Eve. “I am proud to have led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!”…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Between the Tweetstorm that is the Trump presidency and the maelstrom of GOP legislative politics, a lot of domestic news and even more international news is going largely unnoticed and even unreported in the U.S. These three small items caught my attention today. Reuters has reported that this past week in…
BY HANK REICHMAN Leaders of the City University of New York Professional Staff Congress, a joint affiliate of the AAUP and the American Federation of Teachers, and the Rutgers University AAUP-AFT were among fifteen people arrested yesterday at a demonstration in New York protesting the Wall Street funders of the Republican Tax Bill, approved later…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL In a thoughtful commentary on Philly.com recently, Pennsylvania State Treasurer Joe Torsella, offered an insightful perspective on Pennsylvania’s #1 national ranking for most college debt per student, a dubious distinction. The level has reached $35,000 at graduation, or roughly the price of a fully loaded, full–sized new car. It’s a growing…
BY HANK REICHMAN Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos delivered a commencement speech at the University of Baltimore yesterday, sparking protests from students, faculty, and members of the community. According to the Baltimore Sun, “Several dozen graduates slowly rose in protest as she spoke. First, two women in the front row — including one whose graduation…
BY PATRICIA MCGUIRE Patricia McGuire is President of Trinity Washington University in Washington, D.C. In 2010 she was the recipient of the AAUP’s Alexander Meiklejohn Award, given to an American college or university administrator or trustee, or to a board of trustees as a group, in recognition of an outstanding contribution to academic freedom. At…
BY HANK REICHMAN Add Kennesaw State University president Sam Olens to the list of college and university executives hired in secret and departing under a cloud not long after. Last week Olens submitted his resignation amidst a growing scandal over his handling of a political protest by five cheerleaders, who took a knee at a…
BY WENDY LYNNE LEE There is a great deal to be said about the rise of the Alt-Right over this past year, and while I understand the argument for identifying its platform with the ascent of white supremacism, I’d argue that “Alt-Right” encompasses something far more ambitious and dangerous, especially with respect to the country’s…
BY HANK REICHMAN Readers of this blog have probably already heard how the Trump administration has barred officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) from using a list of seven words or phrases in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget. According to the Washington Post, policy analysts were told of…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL It’s hard to imagine how deeply the policies of the Trump Administration will affect America’s colleges and universities. As a group, these institutions are already undergoing substantial disruption. The old financial models under which most higher education institutions operate no longer work. The current path for many of them is not…