BY JOHN K. WILSON Three months ago, I attacked a bill in the Tennessee legislature, the “Tennessee Freedom of Speech on College Campus Bill,” and wrote that it was “a disaster for everyone. It imposes bizarre and burdensome regulations that administrators will struggle to understand and implement. It takes away from professors the ability…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday I posted the first in a series of posts on the free speech rights of invited campus speakers. I fully expected to devote much of today to preparing the next installment. But this morning Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos delivered the commencement address at Bethune-Cookman University, an historically black institution in…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Last week’s efforts that led to the passage by one vote of a House Republican proposal to change health care illustrates the deeper questions now bubbling up about what Americans demand of their government. The Republican-controlled Senate will now take up their version of a health care plan that is likely…
BY HANK REICHMAN AB 847, a bill currently under consideration in the California Assembly, would require the local academic senate of a campus of the California State University or of a campus of the California Community Colleges, and would request the local academic senate of a campus of the University of California, to post its…
BY HANK REICHMAN “A university without student protests against visiting speakers would be like a forest without birds.” — Timothy Garton Ash, Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World, p. 155 This is the first of three four posts in a series. The issue of the right of controversial and sometimes deeply offensive invited…
BY GWENDOLYN BRADLEY Responding to reports that the University of North Carolina Board of Governors is considering barring centers on the university’s campuses from providing legal representation, AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum released the following statement today: Founded in 2001 by the legendary African American civil rights attorney Julius Chambers, the UNC Center for Civil Rights…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND Today, a strong majority of graduate employees at the University of Chicago filed authorization cards with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold a formal union recognition election. Members of Graduate Students United (GSU) personally visited the regional NLRB office to deliver the cards, signed by grad workers from seven…
BY KENNETH S. STERN AND ERNST BENJAMIN This is a guest post by Kenneth S. Stern and Ernst Benjamin. Kenneth S. Stern is the Executive Director of the Justus & Karin Rosenberg Foundation, and a Fellow of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College (where he has taught a course on antisemitism as a Visiting…
BY JOHN K. WILSON On May 4, a judge ruled in favor of Marquette University, taking the extraordinary step of granting summary judgment against professor John McAdams, who currently faces permanent suspension without any due process for having the wrong opinions about his earlier suspension. I have been an expert witness in the McAdams…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND Announcing the AAUP’s endorsement of the College for All Act introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Pramila Jayapal in April, AAUP President Rudy Fichtenbaum said “The College for All Act reaffirms our commitment to quality, public higher education as a right for all Americans. It would expand access to higher…