BY JOHN K. WILSON This week, there was what Jonathan Turley called a “major controversy brewing over free speech and censorship at Emory Law Journal.” Robert George argued, “It’s hard to think of a stupider, more self-defeating idea than imposing political litmus tests on articles submitted to major law reviews. But that’s what the Emory…
BY HANK REICHMAN Late last night the largest ongoing strike in the US came to an end as, after ten weeks out, student workers at Columbia University, represented by Student Workers of Columbia, an affiliate of the United Auto Workers, reached a tentative agreement with university management. All details are not yet public, but it…
BY NICOLE BRAUN Recently, I was hired to teach one class in the spring for a private Catholic university whose representatives told me in multiple interviews that they are a “social justice university.” In the past couple of years, I have sent out more job applications for teaching positions (and for other work) than you…
BY Z. W. TAYLOR, PAT SOMERS, AND JOSH CHILDS The AAUP outlines a four-pronged definition of academic freedom, although it is not codified by any specific case law or statute. Dozens of educational organizations—including the American Psychological Association, the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and the National Education Association, among many others—have endorsed…
BY STEVEN LUBET When Covid-19 protocols forced Texas A&M to withdraw its football team from this year’s Gator Bowl, the game’s sponsors began frantically searching for a replacement to play Wake Forest on December 31, even if that required recruiting a team with a losing record. Under NCAA post-season rules, the first bid went to…
SUBMITTED BY KEVIN L. COPE Supporters of good university governance never stop shaking their heads about Louisiana State University, the only major research university to draw a double censure from the AAUP. This frequently torpedoed flagship institution—the largest vessel in a veritable fleet of state institutions also under AAUP censure—is once again under attack, this…
BY HANK REICHMAN On December 10, I had the pleasure of participating in a fantastic and timely program in the University of California (UC) National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement’s 2021 “Speech Spotlight Live” series. “Is Academic Freedom Under Siege?” featured Sigal Ben-Porath, Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and author of…
BY THE CALIFORNIA FACULTY ASSOCIATION The following is the text of a statement released on December 20 by the California Faculty Association, an AAUP affiliate and collective bargaining agent representing 29,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors, and coaches in the California State University (CSU) system. We are pleased to report that we have reached a tentative…
BY IRENE MULVEY Happy busiest time of the semester, colleagues. And for those of you raising children, or who have elderly family members to be concerned about, I don’t know how you do it all at this time of year. I have no idea how I did it myself when my own children were young.…
BY CAROLYN BETENSKY An article in today’s edition of Inside Higher Ed covered a significant initiative that is picking up steam on campuses across the country. In response to laws passed or proposed by Republican-dominated state legislatures and boards of trustees that ban the teaching of “divisive” materials on race, racism, and gender at state…