BY MICHAEL C. BEHRENT, ALTHA CRAVEY, AND JAY M. SMITH Nearly three months after the Confederate statue was toppled by activists, “Silent Sam” continues to roil the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Despite the controversy’s campus-specific particularities, the questions it raises are emblematic of the issues confronting many campuses in our age of…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), a Washington-based private college presidents association serving more than 700 colleges, universities, and organizations, recently released an important report on what private college presidents are thinking. Chris Quintana described its implications in The Chronicle of Higher Education, “What’s on the Mind of the Private-College President?…
BY BIKO MANDELA GRAY, LORI LATRICE MARTIN, AND STEPHEN C. FINLEY “Hello?” The number on the caller ID is an unfamiliar one, but you know the area code; recently, you gave a job talk in that area or submitted your tenure or promotion portfolio. And so, you hope that this is the phone call—that phone…
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 JOHN K. WILSON Today’s decision by the University of Florida to ban rental of space for an event by white supremacist Robert Spencer is a threat to free speech on campus, and the reasoning behind it poses a danger to a wide range of speech. University of Florida president W. Kent Fuchs justified his…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The following are four statements issued by the University of Virginia and President Theresa A. Sullivan over the last 36 hours. They are presented from the most recent to the least recent, and they are followed by news updates. President Sullivan Condemns Demonstration Violence As events have unfolded on…
BY NEAL H. HUTCHENS Today, Neal H. Hutchens, member of the AAUP Litigation Committee and professor of Higher Education at the University of Mississippi, published this column in Hechinger Report: Last week, the idea of a potential move by the U.S. Department of Justice received swift pushback from supporters of affirmative action in higher education,…
BY HANK REICHMAN Remember that widely circulated map illustrating how in 39 of 50 states the highest-paid state employee is a public university football or basketball coach? If you don’t, here it is: According to USA Today‘s annual survey, in 2015-16 some 72 college football coaches were paid over a million dollars annually, not including…
BY HANK REICHMAN On this, perhaps the most meaningful Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial holiday ever, it is appropriate to turn to King’s words for inspiration. Frequently cited, of course, is his last “I have seen the mountaintop” speech, delivered in Memphis just before his assassination. Less frequently quoted is his remarkable speech at the…
BY MARTIN KICH Hammett, Dashiell. The Maltese Falcon. New York: Knopf, 1930. Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon was not the first hardboiled detective novel. That distinction is commonly accorded to John Daly’s first Race Williams novel, Knights of the Open Palm (1923). But The Maltese Falcon and its film adaptation gave the sub-genre international exposure…