BY ANTHEA BUTLER AND KEVIN GANNON Since 2014, scholars’ summers have been filled with the news of African Americans dying at the hands of police. Eric Garner. Mike Brown. Sandra Bland. Alton Sterling. Philando Castile. George Floyd. Jacob Blake. But as we well know, African American deaths by police know no season, no break. Laquan…
BY JOHN K. WILSON On August 31, Illinois Wesleyan University announced that three tenured faculty would be given one-year terminal contracts and then fired because of controversial plans to discontinue academic programs in anthropology, French, Italian, and religious studies while expanding programs in economics and business. The AAUP’s Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance…
BY MARYBETH GASMAN An English professor at Iowa State University threatened to discipline students who submit papers opposing abortion, the Black Lives Matter movement, or same-sex marriage. In response, administrators at Iowa State University required the professor to change the syllabus and issued a statement to media outlets: The syllabus statement as written was inconsistent…
BY HANK REICHMAN This chart of new coronavirus cases by metropolitan area during the past two weeks comes from the New York Times: Metro or micro area Population Recent cases Per 1,000 1 Ames, Iowa 97,117 964 8.2 2 Iowa City, Iowa 173,105 1,664 7.6 3 Auburn-Opelika, Ala. 164,542 1,430 7.4 4 Muskogee, Okla. 67,997…
BY SUE RAMLO They said they were sorry; they said that it was financial. We were devastated when we got the emails or phone calls about meetings with an administrator concerning our future at the University of Akron (UA)–we were being fired. Our situation made national news because there are nearly one hundred of us…
BY JOHN K. WiLSON Tony Woodlief in the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 30 offered a conservative critique of free speech absolutism, claiming that “the intolerance prevailing on college campuses isn’t the result of too little speech. It’s a consequence of too much speech.” Woodlief represents a disturbing trend on the right, where a sneer…
POSTED BY THE AAUP On August 23, AAUP President Irene Mulvey advocated for community health, safety, and faculty involvement in university decision-making in an interview with Michael Holmes on CNN. Watch the clip and read the transcript below. HOLMES: Irene Mulvey is president of the American Association of University Professors. She joins me now from…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This event will feature speakers from Ohio, but the problems being faced by higher ed institutions in Ohio are clearly not exclusive to our state. So the event may clearly be of broader interest. What created the current crisis in public higher education? Where does all the money spent on education…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH Morning Consult has released the results of its recent polling on whether the BCS playoffs should be held now that two of the Power 5 conferences have postponed their seasons. Of more interest, I think, is the related polling on whether the Big 10 and the PAC-12 made the right decision…
BY DANIELLE FUENTES MORGAN Earlier today, Danielle Fuentes Morgan tweeted the following thread, which is posted with her permission. Morgan is an assistant professor of English at Santa Clara University, and the author of the forthcoming book, Laughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century (University of Illinois Press, Nov. 2020). Santa…