BY HANK REICHMAN There’s much to be troubled by in the Republican tax “reform” proposals under consideration in the House and Senate. Both plans favor inherited wealth over income earned through labor; favor “red states” over “blue states,” and taken together generally amount to what Paul Krugman calls generational class warfare. But as a lifelong…
BY ALTHA CRAVEY I’ve been attending UNC Board of Governors’ meetings for about three years. I knew it was important to understand the Board’s increasing willingness to interfere in campus affairs across the state. The Board had already ceased being a bi-partisan Board with equal numbers of Republican and Democratic members, a “gentleman’s agreement” that…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN On January 31, the AAUP issued a statement on “Targeted Online Harassment of Faculty,” which decried how a growing number of faculty members nationwide “have been subject to threats of physical violence, including sexual assault, through hundreds of e-mails, calls, and social media postings” in response to viewpoints expressed on electronic…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Swirling around the debates over the high sticker price of higher education is a deeper conversation about the broken financial model that most colleges and universities continue to use to pay their bills. While the largest universities have more options based on the scale of their endowment, fundraising prowess, and research…
BY HANK REICHMAN A little less than a year ago, in the wake of the 2016 election, I posted to this blog “A Playlist for the Trump Presidency,” a collection of 30 songs/videos of political relevance. It generated considerable traffic. In February I followed up with “Another Trump Playlist,” with 40 songs/videos, but that post…
BY HANK REICHMAN It’s a common trope among conservatives and many media commentators that college and university campuses are liberal strongholds where students who hold conservative political views are intimidated from expressing them. In Wisconsin last month this led to adoption of a “Commitment to Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression” policy designed to curtail…
BY HANK REICHMAN In the wake of yet another horrific mass shooting, we are hearing the usual offensive nonsense from political supporters of the NRA: only a “good guy” with a gun can stop a bad guy with one, so everyone should arm themselves. And, of course, there’s the continuing mantra that common sense gun…
BY HANK REICHMAN Members of the New York University (NYU) faculty have begun to speak out more forcefully against religious discrimination and limitations on academic freedom at the university’s United Arab Emirates (UAE) branch campus in Abu Dhabi. Last week a majority of the senior faculty of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute signed a…
BY AARON BARLOW Fifty-plus years ago, the political right began a campaign to undermine the institutions of the American political and societal system. They were out of power and had found themselves far outside of the mainstream of both political parties; lacking responsibilities within any extant institutions, they had no commitment to those landmarks of…
BY HANK REICHMAN The University of Wisconsin-Superior announced this week that it will suspend 25 programs, including 9 majors, 15 minors and one graduate program, according to reports by the Duluth News-Tribune and Wisconsin Public Radio. Among the majors affected are sociology, theater, journalism and political science. The university has now suspended 40 programs since…