BY HANK REICHMAN In a recent zoom meeting I had occasion to meet Monica Casper, dean of the College of Arts and Letters at San Diego State University. Dean Casper mentioned that she had recently been the target of online harassment and controversy for some tweets she had posted. Curious, I looked into the case…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Yesterday, I published an opinion essay at Inside Higher Ed titled, “The Inevitable Problem of Self-Censorship.” I argue that surveys showing that a majority of college students report self-censorship are not meaningful ways to understand repression on campus because everyone self-censors to some degree. These surveys are also easy to manipulate.…
BY HANK REICHMAN Ohio State University professor emeritus Harvey Graff, who occasionally posts to this blog, has a smart and entertaining piece today in the Washington Monthly on “The Banality of University Slogans.” You know, the kind of mindless “branding” pablum like, “Here, everything is possible!” It brought to mind the time when my university,…
BY JOHN K. WILSON This week, there was what Jonathan Turley called a “major controversy brewing over free speech and censorship at Emory Law Journal.” Robert George argued, “It’s hard to think of a stupider, more self-defeating idea than imposing political litmus tests on articles submitted to major law reviews. But that’s what the Emory…
BY HANK REICHMAN Late last night the largest ongoing strike in the US came to an end as, after ten weeks out, student workers at Columbia University, represented by Student Workers of Columbia, an affiliate of the United Auto Workers, reached a tentative agreement with university management. All details are not yet public, but it…
BY NICOLE BRAUN Recently, I was hired to teach one class in the spring for a private Catholic university whose representatives told me in multiple interviews that they are a “social justice university.” In the past couple of years, I have sent out more job applications for teaching positions (and for other work) than you…
BY Z. W. TAYLOR, PAT SOMERS, AND JOSH CHILDS The AAUP outlines a four-pronged definition of academic freedom, although it is not codified by any specific case law or statute. Dozens of educational organizations—including the American Psychological Association, the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and the National Education Association, among many others—have endorsed…
BY STEVEN LUBET When Covid-19 protocols forced Texas A&M to withdraw its football team from this year’s Gator Bowl, the game’s sponsors began frantically searching for a replacement to play Wake Forest on December 31, even if that required recruiting a team with a losing record. Under NCAA post-season rules, the first bid went to…
SUBMITTED BY KEVIN L. COPE Supporters of good university governance never stop shaking their heads about Louisiana State University, the only major research university to draw a double censure from the AAUP. This frequently torpedoed flagship institution—the largest vessel in a veritable fleet of state institutions also under AAUP censure—is once again under attack, this…
BY HANK REICHMAN On December 10, I had the pleasure of participating in a fantastic and timely program in the University of California (UC) National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement’s 2021 “Speech Spotlight Live” series. “Is Academic Freedom Under Siege?” featured Sigal Ben-Porath, Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and author of…