BY HANK REICHMAN “We can respect the right of free speech without having to respect the ideas being uttered.” — Joan W. Scott, “On Free Speech and Academic Freedom” (forthcoming) This is the final installment in a four-part series. Part I may be found here; part II is here; part III is here. Academic Freedom…
BY HANK REICHMAN “The speech we must protect most forcefully is not the speech we hate the most, but the speech that is most endangered.” — CUNY Professor of History Angus Johnston (@studentactivism) on Twitter, April 25 “The countless fruitful discussions that happen all the time in college classrooms don’t grab headlines.” — UW Milwaukee…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY Guest blogger Dr. Matthew Boedy is in his second year as Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Composition in the English Department at the University of North Georgia in Gainesville, Ga. He is a member of the AAUP. When I stood in front of my students on the first day of the semester…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY With organizational help from Washington Post humor columnist Alexandria Petri’s recent piece on presidential endorsements . . . The Washington Post, among other major newspapers, is not endorsing presidential candidates this year. And major universities are stepping back from issuing statements on matters of public concern. Since the latter institutions are choosing…
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 PHILIPP W. ROSEMANN On June 14, 2024, the Board of Trustees of the University of Kentucky followed President Eli Capilouto’s recommendation to approve a number of fundamental changes to the governance structures of Kentucky’s flagship university. The board’s actions included the abolition, with immediate effect, of the university senate, which for one hundred years…
POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH For the June 3rd meeting of Portland State University’s Faculty Senate, twenty-one faculty and staff members submitted the following question for PSU President Ann Cudd: In your remarks to Senate last month and in your email “Evolving Community Expectations” on 5/7/2024, you refer to “vile messages” and to ‘”that kind of…
POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH On April 23, 2024, the AAUP-Penn Executive Committee issued the following statement. We condemn in the strongest terms the wave of recent repression of students and faculty engaged in peaceful and principled protest by university administrations across the country. These include the draconian treatment of students by the administrations of Barnard…
BY DANIEL A. SEGAL The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and MIT did a famously terrible job responding to Representative Elise Stefanik’s questions at the congressional hearing on “antisemitism on college campuses” this past December. But so far, their failure has been treated either as a case of incompetence in the realm of…