BY CAROLYN BETENSKY Faculty members who would have been Professor Nikole Hannah-Jones’s colleagues at the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina have written a powerful statement voicing support for her decision not to accept the tenured position she was offered last week at their school. After a demeaning and…
BY MIMI V. CHAPMAN The following letter was sent by University of North Carolina faculty chair Mimi V. Chapman to the faculty. July 1, 2021 Dear Carolina Community: At last, a difficult chapter has come to a conclusion. Yesterday, the UNC Board of Trustees met to consider Nikole Hannah-Jones’ tenure dossier and then voted to grant…
BY SYDNEY FREEMAN, JR., AND DEBORAH THORNE Results from student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are biased; the evidence is irrefutable. Students more harshly assess female instructors and instructors of color. Despite that, in the professional lives of instructors, SETs are extremely consequential—they are used to guide very high stakes personnel decisions such as whether one…
BY JOHN K. WILSON The tenured appointment of Nikole Hannah-Jones was approved by the University of North Carolina trustees a few minutes ago. This is a victory for academic freedom and for shared governance. The academic freedom victory is about the importance of tenure to academic freedom. Some people argued that Hannah-Jones didn’t need tenure,…
BY HANK REICHMAN Greg Lukianoff, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), and three co-authors have written a piece, “13 important points in the campus & K-12 ‘critical race theory’ debate,” discussing the avalanche of proposed and, in some cases, already enacted legislation governing classroom instruction in both higher ed and…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Pennsylvania House Bill 1532, introduced earlier this month, has received widespread criticism after Jeffrey Sachs on Twitter wrote that “not only does it prohibit universities from promoting any of the usual forbidden concepts, it also prohibits them from hosting speakers or assigning readings that do.” If anything, Sachs and other critics understate…
BY HANK REICHMAN Regular readers of this blog would be likely to assume, quite correctly, that I am not an admirer of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. But I’ve got to hand it to Mr. “I Like Beer.” His concurring opinion in the NCAA case, decided this week, got my attention and wins my…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last week the AAUP, joined by more than 90 other groups, issued a powerful “Joint Statement on Legislative Efforts to Restrict Education about Racism and American History.” And, of course, it’s not only legislation. The continuing controversy over the failure of the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees to approve a…
BY HANK REICHMAN In an unprecedented move, the University of North Carolina (UNC) Board of Governors has refused to re-appoint a respected law professor to the University of North Carolina Press Board of Governors. The reason seems to be the professor’s public statements on the legality of the UNC System’s controversial handling of the Silent…
BY HANK REICHMAN The Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia today (June 21) recognized New York’s Bard College as an “undesirable organization.” According to the ministry, Bard’s activities in Russia “pose a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and security” of Russia. The designation threatens, and may well guarantee, the termination of a longstanding…