J. M. Coetzee on Academic Freedom

What follows is the opening section of J. M. Coetzee’s Foreword to a new book by John Higgins, Academic Freedom in a Democratic South Africa. Coetzee is, of course, a very highly regarded South African novelist, whose honors include the Nobel Prize for Literature. Higgins is a professor at the University of Cape Town. The…

The Real Meaning

One of the dangers of the over-reliance on (some would say “abuse of” and I would not argue) adjuncts and other contingent hires is that it creates a pressure-cooker environment for those particular teachers, one that sometimes explodes–as it did yesterday for adjunct and Slate contributor Rebecca Schuman. Writing, putatively, about student essays and whether or not they…

When a Trustee and Major Donor Becomes an Embarrassment

In late October, Federal prosecutors in El Paso, Texas, formally charged Marco Antonio Delgado with conspiring to launder $600 million in drug profits for the Mexican Milenio Cartel. Delgado was a prominent attorney and known in El Paso and beyond as a generous philanthropist. The investigation that led authorities to Delgado began in 2007 when…

Two Very Different Takes on the American Dream

Published by AlterNet, C. J. Werleman’s “Look at the Stats: America Resembles a Poor Country” presents a succinct survey of data that suggests that the American Dream is becoming an ever more remote possibility for more and more Americans. Here is an excerpt from the article [the full text of which can be found at…

Larry Summers Wants to Boycott Academic Freedom

I’ve always had some ambivalent feelings about boycotts. I agree with the AAUP’s strong and principled opposition to academic boycotts, and I think engagement in almost every case is better than a boycott. On the other hand, I believe that individuals have the right to engage in boycotts, that institutions have the right to urge…

Ohio Jobs That Apparently Are Not Worth Preserving

Never mind that the Ohio legislature continues to cut funding to K-12 education and local communities or that those cuts have resulted in the loss of thousands of teaching positions and local civil-service jobs. Never mind that the Ohio legislature continues to give tax breaks to the most affluent Ohioans and Ohio corporations, even as…