Bogazici University building at dusk with trees in the foreground

Appeals to Support Turkey’s Bogacizi University

BY JOAN W. SCOTT Our colleagues at Bogacizi University in Istanbul, Turkey, have asked us for support. Below are a letter from Professor Zeynep Gambetti asking for support and a letter that is now circulating to indicate international support. Appeal from Bogazici University Subject: Bogazici University under attack since Jan. 1 Dear friends and colleagues,…

Aaron Barlow speaking at the 2015 AAUP annual conference.nt.

Aaron J. Barlow, 1951‒2021

BY MICHAEL FERGUSON With great sadness we note the death on January 11 of Aaron Barlow, who served as a contributing editor to this blog and was the faculty editor of Academe magazine from 2013 to 2018. A professor of English at New York City College of Technology, Aaron brought wide-ranging interests in new media,…

Why We Need Free Expression, Now More Than Ever

BY JOHN K. WILSON The attack on the Capitol by Trump terrorists which led to five deaths was a shocking, horrifying crime. Trump and his supporters deserve the strongest condemnation for their role in fabricating a lie about the election results and then calling upon a mob to fight for a coup to overthrow the…

Crowds surrounding the US Capitol on January 6, 2020, carrying pro-Trump flags.

President Trump Must Be Removed

BY IRENE MULVEY, PAUL DAVIS, AND CHRISTOPHER SINCLAIR AAUP leadership issued the following statement today. Two days ago, while white supremacist, Trump-supporting insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol, we wrote that we were appalled by the assault and noted that the current administration’s actions—over the long term but especially since the election of Joe Biden in November—are…

US Capitol with windows illuminated at dusk

Assault on the US Capitol

BY THE AAUP The AAUP is appalled by the assault on the US Capitol today. The current administration’s attacks on truth, inflammatory rhetoric, and baseless objections to the result of a free and fair election have now led to violence, highlighting the precarious state of our democracy. We look forward to working with the new…

Academic Freedom under Attack in France

BY JOAN W. SCOTT For many years, in what now seems the distant past, France was known as the nation that welcomed refugees from authoritarian countries; revolutionary activists, artists, exiled politicians, dissident students, could find sustenance and support in the land of liberty, equality, and fraternity.  It is also the country whose philosophers gave us…

In Defense of Garrett Felber

BY JOHN K. WILSON Last month, University of Mississippi assistant professor of history Garrett Felber was fired in one of the most remarkable attacks on academic freedom in recent memory, a dismissal that violates the First Amendment, academic freedom, shared governance, the faculty handbook, AAUP guidelines, and basic principles of intellectual standards, fairness, and justice.…