Cardboard protest sign with "Amplify your voice" and a black arrow pointing down written on it

The Israel-Palestine War and Academic Freedom

BY ELLEN SCHRECKER As the tragic conflict unfolds in Israel and Gaza, the AAUP may now face attempts to fire pro-Palestinian professors that could make earlier academic purges look like a tea party. I know whereof I speak. I have studied academic freedom and higher education for over forty years and traced the AAUP’s failure…

man on ladder with paint roller, painting over another man's speech bubble with orange paint

New Academe Considers the “New Culture Wars”

POSTED BY KELLY HAND Winter 2019 | Vol. 105, No. 1 This issue of Academe addresses the questions of speech that have fueled the culture wars on college campuses in recent years. Articles discuss the assault on the public mission of higher education; the implications of a polarized political climate for faculty members, administrators, and students; and…

crowd demonstrating holding signs

New culture wars same as the old culture wars?

BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Thirty years ago, we all understood what the term “culture wars” meant. It was about Mapplethorpe vs. Helms and teaching dead white men vs. revisionist and black history. There were lines. Whichever side you were on, you knew where you stood. The battle lines changed and have morphed into something quite…