The following is the text of a letter sent yesterday to Joanne Berger-Sweeney, urging her to immediately reinstate professor Johnny Eric Williams to his normal faculty duties. Professor Williams, an associate professor of sociology with twenty-one years of service at Trinity College, was placed on leave Monday evening after being targeted with a flood of…
Athletics contribute enormously to college life. They provide a unifying force across the campus community in which the college’s principal stakeholders – faculty, students, staff, alumni, parents, donors, and the community – can rally with pride in support of the institution. Athletics are often the public face of a college. At the largest institutions, this…
The following statement on the suspension of Professor Johnny Williams was issued by the Executive Committee of the Trinity College AAUP chapter. This morning Inside Higher Ed reports that “Williams said he was told by a dean that he was taking leave whether he wanted to or not, and that Trinity made its decision in…
BY HANK REICHMAN The shocking story of Trinity College professor Johnny Williams, target of racist harassment and death threats that led to a one-day shutdown of Trinity College, has taken another ominous turn. Today Trinity College President Joanne Berger-Sweeney issued the following statement: June 26, 2017 To the Members of the Trinity Community, As a…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH What follows is the fourth section of the most recent higher education report produced by the Ohio Conference of AAUP. John McNay, the President of the Conference, and Sara Kilpatrick, the Executive Director of the Conference, deserves kudos for doing the bulk of the work on this report. The report has…
BY AARON BARLOW What do you think of when someone says, “college student”? Probably a white kid, well spoken, from an upper-middle-class professional family—especially if that is your own background and was your own college experience. This was David Brooks’ experience. Yale, Duke and the University of Chicago are the campuses he knows and, very…
BY HANK REICHMAN Besieged Trinity College professor Johnny Eric Williams yesterday issued a statement apologizing for his use of a controversial hashtag on a Facebook post, even as he remained in hiding out of fear of death threats made against him and his family. Those threats, as I reported Wednesday, compelled Trinity to shut down…
BY HANK REICHMAN Already reeling from the lengthy and damaging, though ultimately successful, campaign to retain the community college’s accreditation, faculty, students, and community supporters at City College of San Francisco (CCSF) may now face a new challenge. Yesterday, the college’s trustees approved a $310,500 contract for new Chancellor Mark Rocha, despite objections from dozens…
By JOERG TIEDE The following petition is being circulated by the AAUP. Sign to stand against threats and harassment. We are dismayed that another faculty member, Johnny Eric Williams of Trinity College, has become the target of a flood of threats following reports about his social media postings by the right-wing media outlet Campus Reform. In…
BY MICHAEL C. BEHRENT Interviewer Michael C. Behrent of Appalachian State University is vice president of the AAUP’s North Carolina state conference. Several months ago, something strange happened to Jay Smith, a tenured professor in UNC-Chapel Hill’s History Department: he found out that his dean made his chair cancel a class he had been scheduled…