BY MICHAEL BANERJEE A July 26, 2025 New York Times article brought to light the federal government’s desire to have Penny Pritzker, the senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, Harvard University’s governing board, step down as part of Harvard’s negotiations with the federal government, which the university sued in April after the government demanded that…
By Matthew Boedy Most if not all Georgia institutions got a public records request last week from a shadowy media group linked to a politically conservative “government transparency” coalition. I have been able to confirm 13 schools got the request. Here is what the group requested: A complete list of course syllabi for all undergraduate…
BY CATHERINE D’IGNAZIO As a professor at MIT, I find myself navigating strange waters these days. Last semester, I advised the thesis of a student who left the country because she did not feel welcome in the United States (and she is a citizen). I listened to exceptional students from around the world tell me…
BY HANK REICHMAN I’m old enough to remember when the venerable business magazine Forbes used to identify itself as a “capitalist tool.” The publication, now run by former flat-tax presidential candidate Steve Forbes, is unsurprisingly conservative and Republican in its editorial policies. Forbes endorsed Donald Trump in both 2016 and 2024. And while Forbes the magazine has…
BY COLUMBIA ALUMNI FOR ACADEMIC FREEDOM The Trump Administration’s abuses have placed Columbia University leadership in an agonizing position, pitting the welfare of Columbia’s faculty, staff, and students – and the fate of critical research projects – against considerations of institutional independence, academic freedom, constitutional democracy and rule of law. We recognize that, in reaching…
BY AARON NISENSON The Trump administration has successfully buried a key component of the Columbia settlement agreement. The focus on monetary damages paid by the university and restrictions on campus protests and diversity policies obscures the Trump administration’s imposition of the right to interfere directly in university admissions, hiring, and promotion decisions. The Trump administration…
BY HILTON OBENZINGER Dear Claire Shipman, President, Columbia University. I received your letter and other notices about Columbia’s settlement with the Trump administration, and I’m disappointed and angry. I know you have a tough job, but perhaps unwittingly you harmed me. By agreeing to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, you have turned…
BY THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY CHAPTER OF THE AAUP The Agreement between the federal government and Columbia University announced on July 24, 2025, has been presented as a settlement of Title VI violations, specifically the university’s alleged failure to curtail bias and harassment directed toward Jewish faculty, staff, and students. However, as has been pointed out by…
BY AUDREY BERLOWITZ The recent announcement of the founding of the Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE) reveals another “axis of power” in the multiwebbed right-wing war on the US university. Though the new body entails only the seven southern public university systems of Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas A & M,…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY Every AAUP member should be concerned about the new accreditation group recently birthed in Florida. This week Louisiana became the seventh state to say it was joining. While only for now targeting states in the South the group’s business plan shows its strategy is to take on as clients public schools in…