No One Expects a College to Close Even When Signs Are Clear
In college communities affected by closures, the economic impact of a college’s business operations suddenly becomes important.
Research Universities File Amicus Brief Against Immigration Ban
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Following are excerpts from an amicus brief filed yesterday in the case of Hameed Darweesh and People of the State of New York v. Donald Trump by seventeen prominent private research universities, including all eight members of the Ivy League. The amici are: Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Chicago,…
Victory for Free Speech in Iowa as Assault on Unions Intensifies
BY HANK REICHMAN Iowa State University has lost an appeal in a federal free speech lawsuit that affirms student rights regardless of political viewpoint, the Des Moines Register reports. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled February 13 that school administrators, including President Steven Leath, violated the First Amendment rights of two…
“We have at most a year to defend American democracy, perhaps less“
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Timothy Snyder is the Housum Professor of History at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. He is the author of six highly praised works in European history, including most recently the award-winning Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin and Black Earth: The Holocaust…
Facts, Falsehoods and the First Amendment
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Late last year I posted a piece about climate scientist and AAUP Committee A member Michael Mann’s important victory in his ongoing libel suit. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled in a 111-page opinion that Mann can sue two conservative writers over allegations that they defamed him. The case centers on…
Support Imprisoned Turkish Scholars
BY HANK REICHMAN In November I posted to this blog the text of a letter from an imprisoned Turkish scholar, Dr. Sedat Laçiner,. The following is the text of a blog post written by Dr. Laçiner, shortly before his imprisonment: Opponent or Terrorist? Dramatically Changing Nature of Turkish Democracy Sedat Laciner In advanced democracies, the…
Dirks: "Do Not Condone Violence To Suppress Free Speech"
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN University of California at Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks, who resigned last summer pending installment of a replacement (to be announced soon, it is said), has suffered the arrows of considerable criticism from his faculty, Bay Area media, and, to some extent, from me on this blog (e.g., here, here, and here). …
The AWP and Disability Inclusion
BY STEPHEN KUUSISTO The writer Quintan Anna Wikswo has written an “Open Letter to the AWP Regarding Disability Rights” which you can read here: http://bumblemoth.com/open-letter-to-awp-regarding-disability-rights/ If you’re not an academic writer—a poet, novelist, short fiction writer, playwright, or non-fictionist who makes her living teaching you might not be aware of the AWP, more comprehensively known…
Dissent at Berkeley
BY MICHAEL MERANZE The following post by UCLA history professor Michael Meranze is reposted by permission from the Remaking the University blog that he runs along with UC Santa Barbara professor Christopher Newfield. I have offered my own view of the Milo controversy at Berkeley in “On Milo’s Right to Speak.” The turmoil surrounding Milo…
'The Great Shame of Our Profession'
BY AARON BARLOW Kevin Birmingham, who teaches at Harvard as an adjunct, gave a talk last October on accepting the Truman Capote Award. It is reprinted in The Chronicle of Higher Education and I’d recommend that each of us who is tenured or on the tenure track read it. Birmingham writes: I sometimes wonder when the ripples widened…