U.S. Higher Education News for September 14, 2015

  Barragan, James. “’Ask a Mexican’ Columnist to Keynote UT’s Hispanic Month.” Austin American-Statesman [TX] 14 Sep. 2015: B, 1. Gustavo Arellano, the writer behind the nationally syndicated column “Ask a Mexican” and the book “Tacos USA,” which discusses how Mexican food penetrated American culture, will give the keynote speech Tuesday for the University of…

No Special Treatment for Political Activists of any Stripe

AcademeBlog invited Jay Schalin, Director of Policy Analysis at The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy to respond to a critique by John K. Wilson of Schalin’s essay on Gene Nichol and the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund at UNC-Chapel Hill. Below is Schalin’s response, which is crossposted at the Pope Center. No…

A Poverty Fund Reborn at UNC, and Critics Want to Destroy It

Earlier this year, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Governors ordered the closing of the law school’s Poverty Center in an act of political retaliation against its outspoken director, Gene Nichol. The AAUP condemned the decision. This month, Nichol announced that Center would be replaced by the new North Carolina Poverty Research…

The Racist Professor at the University of Illinois

University of Illinois emeritus professor Robert Weissberg published an essay this week with the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, a right-wing think tank, in which he argues about the Salaita case: “The trustees are not guilty of violating free speech; their sin is cowardice in overseeing the faculty. They did not perform…

An Appeal to Conservative Scholars, and Its Outcome

By Donald Lazere I sent out the following “Appeal” last February. I received no response from ACTA and a form rejection from the Center for the American University. NAS posted it on its home page, where it received two evasive responses. George Leef, head of the Pope Center, answered with a review of my book.…

What Has Happened to the AAUP?

by Peter Wood This post was originally published on June 17 at Minding the Campus. Author Peter Wood is President of the National Association of Scholars. We asked for (and received) permission to re-post the article here, in light of a guest post by Allan Lichtman of American University that is a response to Wood.…