BY JONATHAN REES I swear the first time I heard about AI in the way that that term is being used lately is when John Oliver married a cabbage. Then, because this was before the great Twitter exodus happened, just about everyone in my feed started posting absolutely ridiculous essays they got when they started…
BY JANE S. GABIN Despite the heroic efforts of union organizers, higher education in this country remains a discouraging miasma for applicants, teachers, and families. Representatives of national groups who could take steps to stop or reverse this trend seem unwilling or unable to do so. Several years ago, the president of the National Association…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY A first-of-its-kind survey of higher education faculty across the South has revealed that an overwhelming majority of respondents in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas are deeply dissatisfied with the current state of higher education. The survey, which received responses from nearly 3,000…
BY EVE DARIAN-SMITH Something is broken in our college and university systems. Professors are being declared “the enemy of the people” by J. D. Vance and other MAGA Republicans. Book bans, curriculum reviews, attacks on DEI programs, threats of defunding, and suspending faculty or removing their tenure are becoming widespread. Students engaged in peaceful assembly…
BY CAROLE H. BROWNER ET AL. A group of senior professors at the University of California was denied free speech and academic freedom by the administration and its nine student newspapers during the COVID-19 pandemic in furtherance of the university’s abominable policy of silencing all dissent, questioning, and criticisms of its draconian COVID policies. The…
BY JENNIFER RUTH Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Saree Makdisi, UCLA professor and author of Palestine Inside Out and Tolerance is a Wasteland, for the documentary film The Palestine Exception. “The knowledge is out there,” Makdisi told me. “The genie is not going back in the bottle. In fact, the bottle is broken.…
BY ANTHONY ALESSANDRINI The AAUP’s new “Statement on Academic Boycotts,” which reverses its prior opposition to academic boycotts, is a major declaration. Stating clearly that boycotts “can be considered legitimate tactical responses to conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the mission of higher education,” it confirms there are instances in which upholding academic freedom may…
BY NATHANIEL MILLS Joe Lockard’s August 8 Academe Blog post criticizes, with multiple errors and missing contexts, a statement of the executive committee of the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities AAUP chapter. The chapter’s statement protests the role played by nonacademic groups in the UMN administration’s recent decision to block the hire of Raz Segal as…
BY HANK REICHMAN When the AAUP’s special committee on political interference and academic freedom in Florida’s public higher education system, which I cochaired, issued its report last December, there was little mention of former Nebraska Republican senator Ben Sasse’s appointment as president of the University of Florida. After all, Governor Ron DeSantis’s unprecedented takeover of…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY The 2024 AAUP Faculty in the South Survey is live. If you are a faculty member of any kind in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas we want to hear from you. Here is the link to the survey. Please fill out the survey…