POSTED BY THE AAUP Volume 14: Landscapes of Power and Academic Freedom The 2023 issue of the Journal of Academic Freedom seeks original articles that investigate the links between landscapes of social power and the historical development and contemporary status of academic freedom. For over a century, the AAUP has defended the profession against attacks…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Adam Kissel has written an article in the Federalist titled “The Smart Lawmaker’s Guide To Writing Anti-Critical Race Theory Laws That Will Stand Up In Court.” As scary as that headline is, the full essay is much more alarming in its open advocacy of repression. Kissel’s piece was in response to…
BY RAPHAEL SASSOWER Once upon a time, the administration of a sleepy state university proposed a new budget, offering the rationale that the new budget would “incentivize” departments and promote “entrepreneurial” conduct—couching it in terms of “decentralized” operations and rewarding colleges for increases in their student full-time equivalent enrollments. Three years into the proposed experiment…
BY ALAN SINGER Academic freedom is the most sacred tradition in American universities. Academic freedom generally ensures that “both faculty members and students can engage in intellectual debate without fear of censorship or retaliation” and “establishes a faculty member’s right to remain true to his or her pedagogical philosophy and intellectual commitments.” Although K–12 teachers…
BY MICHAEL MERANZE The strike continues with no end in sight. Although there have been tentative agreements concerning post-docs and academic researchers, in the academic student employee (ASE) and student researcher units, the parties appear to remain well apart on the fundamental economic issues. This distance is most easily seen in the ASE category: although…
BY TAYLOR SWAAK Hi, everyone! I’m a reporter with the Chronicle of Higher Education covering technology and innovation. I’m in the midst of a newsroom report (see past examples here) on how colleges can thoughtfully, safely, and effectively partner with outside companies for services related to academic and student support. The broad umbrella of contracted services may…
BY HANK REICHMAN “We are deeply concerned that the crisis of the American university–the decline of tenure-track jobs and universities’ eroding commitment to the humanities and social sciences–has created a structural crisis for scholarship.” So write the editors of the Journal of the Early Republic, published by the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic…
BY TIMOTHY V. KAUFMAN-OSBORN For academic freedom’s advocates, there is much to like about the recent federal court ruling prohibiting Florida’s board of governors from enforcing the Individual Freedom Act. Especially gratifying are the rhetorical tropes Judge Mark Walker deploys in justifying this preliminary injunction. When the legislature adopted what Governor Ron DeSantis dubbed the…
BY TALIA SCHAFFER, SETH KAHN, RACHEL SAGNER BUURMA, AND CAROLYN BETENSKY Over the past few weeks, a slew of law schools have announced that they will no longer participate in the US News and World Report’s rankings because of the publication’s problematic methodology and the effects of their rankings. This spate of denunciations follows on…
BY HARVEY J. GRAFF In my new Journal of Academic Freedom article, “The Nondebate about Critical Race Theory and Our American Moment,” I discuss battles over the past in the context of the US reckoning with truth, reconciliation, collective knowledge, and the pursuit of an inclusive, equitable democracy. These battles at the intersection of past,…