BY MICHAEL SCHWALBE It’s not surprising that Charlie Kirk’s followers would laud him as a champion of free speech even while exploiting his death to stifle the speech of others who saw him as no kind of hero. This is, after all, what partisans are apt to do. The point isn’t to defend a principle—freedom…
BY HANK REICHMAN The other day I had occasion to speak with a leader of the AAUP chapter at Columbia University, my alma mater. I mentioned to him how useful and impressive I have found the coverage of university events in the student-run campus daily newspaper, the Spectator. He agreed that the students have done an…
BY MICHAEL FERGUSON Following is the editor’s introduction to the fall 2025 issue of Academe, “Defending Academic Values,” out this week. The full issue and table of contents can be found here. Sather Gate, pictured on this issue’s cover, marks the entrance to the heart of the University of California’s Berkeley campus. With Sproul Plaza on one…
BY JOAN W. SCOTT This essay is adapted from the author’s contribution to a forum the Johns Hopkins University AAUP chapter organized to discuss Lisa Siraganian’s Academe article “Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity.” As with so many other liberal principles, the Right has seized and perverted the seemingly benign pluralism implied by “viewpoint diversity” to…
BY LAURIE ESSIG On Wednesday, October 1, the Department of Education sent nine universities a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” The document asks universities to comply with a variety of restrictions like capping the number of international students and not considering factors like race or gender in hiring and admissions. More ominously, the…
BY ERIC J. WEINER Although Lisa Siraganian’s recent article ”Seven Theses Against Viewpoint Diversity” includes important considerations for the heterodox academic community, her theses do more to distort the intentions and purposes of heterodoxical teaching and learning than to illuminate its potential conflicts and contradictions. Siraganian’s general critique of “viewpoint diversity” is that it is…
BY AMY HAGOPIAN Public health professionals are charged with responding to humanitarian crises. When hospitals are bombed, when children are deliberately starved, when doctors are assassinated, we’re supposed to speak up. That’s the job. Last week, I was informed my American Public Health Association membership has been revoked, my annual meeting registration cancelled, and I…
The Coalition for Action in Higher Education and AAUP Local 6741 are delighted to announce their Fall 2025 series, “Mapping Anti-Palestinian Discrimination, Harassment, and Misinformation in U.S. Higher Education.” This series of five webinars from October to December brings together educators, activists, and organizations representing them to fight back against the bad-faith misuse of the…
BY HANK REICHMAN The image above is from an AI video that the GREAT (and demented) LEADER himself posted to social media. It reminded me of an historical analogy I’ve been mulling over since I first saw videos of masked ICE thugs rampaging through neighborhoods, courthouses, and downtown squares, chasing down immigrants (documented or not)…
BY LAURA GOLDBLATT, MELISSA LEVY, AND DAN SEGAL With scant exceptions, US colleges and universities have a board of trustees that is the institution’s highest decision-making or governance body. In response to the current widespread assault on academic freedom, rights of speech and assembly on campus, and the role of campus governance, the Academic Council…