On April 17, higher ed unions, AAUP chapters, and student organizations across the U.S. are coming together for a national day of action to fight back against the coordinated assault on teaching and learning, and to mobilize for a system of higher education that serves the public good. Our aim is not just to beat…
BY LAUREN GUTTERMAN AND LISA L. MOORE On February 22nd, 2024, Dr. Paige Schilt, a social worker, author, and former lecturer and staff member at the University of Texas at Austin, was scheduled to give a talk entitled “A Queer Path to Leadership: Finding a Mentor to Help You Succeed in Higher Education.” It was…
BY MARK S. JAMES Last August, my colleague wrote about how our university’s leadership has embraced a top-down corporate model as the way of running the university, and he proceeded to describe various instances when they have ignored shared governance and threatened academic freedom. This trend has continued unabated. The most recent example of this…
BY THE GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY AAUP CHAPTER From donor influence scandals to Supreme Court boondoggles, there’s never a dull moment at George Mason University (GMU). Now, once again, Mason students and faculty find themselves under attack. This time, Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin and his political appointees on Mason’s Board of Visitors are coming for our…
BY BILL V. MULLEN A dangerous and broadly worded bill making faculty vulnerable to termination for not conforming to a state legislature’s definition of political diversity will likely be voted on by the Indiana state legislature on Tuesday, February 27th. Senate Bill 202 mandates that in order to receive tenure faculty must demonstrate that they…
BY ERIC SCARFFE AND KATHERINE VALDE After the initial draft of House Bill (HB) 999 began circulating online last year, talk of Florida could be heard in the halls of almost every institution of higher education in the United States. As acting chapter president of the United Faculty of Florida at Florida International University, for…
BY JENNIFER RUTH Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of a DEI committee? At the University of Texas–Austin, Professor Kathleen McElroy served on the Council for Racial and Ethnic Equity and Diversity. She also wrote an op-ed for the student newspaper, The Daily Texan, entitled “The Importance of Faculty Diversity Is…
POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH In a letter to the editor, AAUP president Irene Mulvey responded to a series of articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education in which AAUP statements were invoked to argue for the primacy of either academic freedom or diversity, equity, and inclusion. This framing pits the two against one another, as…
BY KELLY BENJAMIN Students from at least nine universities across Florida walked out of class yesterday in protest of Governor Ron DeSantis’s relentless barrage of attacks on the state’s higher education system. The walkouts, organized by the Dream Defenders and Stand for Freedom, come in response to DeSantis’s crackdown on all things “woke” in state education, including…
BY JENNIFER RUTH I don’t think I need to rehearse the incident and its very unjust consequences for one adjunct professor. It’s all over the news, both in higher ed and mainstream outlets. “Our response to the classroom event does not disregard or minimize the importance of academic freedom,” said Hamline University president Fayneese Miller…