Statement of the AAUP-Penn Executive Committee on the Penn Administration’s Escalating Police and Security Actions

POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN On October 26, the Executive Committee of the University of Pennsylvania AAUP chapter issued the following public statement regarding the recent police raid on Penn undergraduate students: We are alarmed by the Penn administration’s escalating use of police action against Penn students. So too are we alarmed by the University’s pattern—established…

Timeline of crackdowns on protests at University of Massachusetts Amherst shows image of encampment with tents, Palestinian flag, and signs

Being Revolutionary

BY ASHA NADKARNI AND LAURA BRIGGS This post is part of a blog series, organized by Annelise Orleck, that will focus on recent crackdowns on protests at US college and university campuses against Israel’s war on Gaza. You can read the first post and an introduction to the series here. Like many campuses, the University…

How Far Have We Gone?

BY MALICK W. GHACHEM In the weeks since writing my recent piece for Academe magazine on last year’s Israel-Palestine campus conflict, the atmosphere on my own campus (MIT) has become, if anything, even more tense. The pressures bearing down on both administrators and students remain all too apparent, as does the war of attrition about…

Industrial smokestacks spew smoke into a hazy sky

Why Polluting Speech Should Not Be Regulated

BY JOHN K. WILSON The temptation to regulate free speech in the name of a higher good is a constant danger on the left, and the right. Too often, we ignore how centrist administrators and thinkers endorse censorship too easily, and how much power they hold. I think the greatest threats to campus free speech…

Image of the fall 2024 Academe cover, a deep purple background with an artistic rendition of people joining arms in a circle with the title "The Status of Academic Collective Bargaining" in the middle

From the Editor: The State of Faculty Unions

BY MICHAEL FERGUSON Following is the editor’s introduction to the fall 2024 issue of Academe, “The Status of Academic Collective Bargaining,” out this week. The full table of contents for the issue can be found here. Recently released data from the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Educa­tion and the Professions brought…

U. of Washington Jewish Community Response to Campus Antisemitism Task Force Report

POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN The following public response was addressed to the administration and regents of the University of Washington. We write as Jewish faculty, staff, alumni, and students of the University of Washington to voice our concerns with the Antisemitism Task Force’s Report, titled “Climate Assessment and Reports from the Antisemitism and Islamophobia Task…