BY HANK REICHMAN In June, 2014, California Superior Court Judge Rolf M. Treu overturned California statutes guaranteeing due process protections for K-12 teachers with more than two years experience (so-called “teacher tenure”) and layoff by seniority. The case, Vergara v. California, was the topic of a number of entries on this blog. The basic argument…
Here is the lead item, a legislative update, in the latest weekly communication to our members statewide from the Ohio Conference’s Communications Committee: On February 22, Department of Higher Education Director John Carey unveiled changes and new initiatives to Ohio’s higher education system that will be addressed in a mid-biennium review (MBR) bill. The highlights…
BY HANK REICHMAN Melissa A. Click, the communications professor whose actions during a student protest last fall sparked controversy, has been fired by the University of Missouri’s Board of Curators, according to a statement from the system. The action was apparently taken last night, in a closed session, by a vote of 4-2. “The board…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last year George Yancy, a professor of philosophy at Emory University, conducted a series of 19 interviews with philosophers and public intellectuals on the issue of race, published in the New York Times feature “The Stone,” which seeks to bring the insights of philosophy (as in “the philosopher’s stone”) to bear on issues…
BY MARTIN KICH Students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi have been physically attacked, have been held in judicial custody, and have had charges of sedition filed against them for espousing views challenging to the state. There have also been vociferous calls from the Indian political Right to shut down this premier…
BY AARON BARLOW The focus of discussion on Donald Trump is, understandably, the man himself—but the phenomenon of his success arises elsewhere. What Gertrude Stein said about Oakland, that “there is no there there,” applies to the man: all we have “there” is a massive ego. Trump is simply a skilled entertainer, Howard Beale of…
BY HANK REICHMAN President Barack Obama today announced his intent to nominate Carla D. Hayden as Librarian of Congress. Hayden would be the first woman and the first African American to hold the position. Carla Hayden is CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Maryland, a position she has held since 1993. She…
BY JONATHAN REES Last week, I went to a meeting with our system’s Chancellor, Tony Frank, who is also the President of the Colorado State System’s flagship campus, CSU-Fort Collins. I was sitting in on a Faculty Senate meeting with no planned agenda except to ask Frank questions. Nonetheless, almost every single question was something…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last summer Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed SB 11, also known as the “campus carry” law, at a shooting range. The law permits the concealed carry of guns in dorms, classrooms, and buildings at state universities and community colleges, while leaving individual schools some latitude to keep parts of their properties firearm-free, extending…
BY PETER N. KIRSTEIN In 2008, then Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (Dem. NY)–she avoids using her family name and prefers the title “Mrs.” to garner presumably the anti-feminist vote-was engaged in one of the most epic contests in American history for the Democratic-presidential nomination. In May 2008, her first presidential bid was stagnating having lost BOTH the Indiana…