Image of four fists of different skin tones raised in solidarity against a yellow background

AAUP-Penn to Interim President: “Do Not Escalate”

POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH This morning, on April 27th, the AAUP-Penn Executive Committee sent the following urgent message to Interim President Jameson, Provost Jackson, and Senior Executive Vice President Carnaroli in response to last night’s message threatening to shut down the student antiwar protest on College Green: April 27, 2024 Dear President Jameson, Provost Jackson,…

Palestinian flags on a green lawn in front of buildings and trees at Marquette University

Response to the Armed Vandals Who Assaulted Students for Justice in Palestine Memorial at Marquette University

BY RACHEL IDA BUFF On April 7, Marquette University Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), with full knowledge and consent by the university administration, planted 41,000 flags to symbolize the death toll from the ongoing genocide in Gaza. That night, three Zionist educators not affiliated with the university desecrated the memorial. One of them carried…

Two Important Statements on Shafik’s Testimony before Congress

POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH AAUP President Irene Mulvey and the AAUP chapters of Barnard and Columbia released statements regarding Minouche Shafik’s testimony before the House Education and Workforce Committee. Below is Mulvey’s statement, followed by the chapters’ statement. Wednesday, before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, President Shafik threw academic freedom and Columbia…

The AAUP’s Absolutist Antiboycott Policy Reexamined

BY DANIEL A. SEGAL At a moment when the Israeli assault on Gaza has destroyed every university that had existed in Gaza, and the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement again calls on academics outside of Palestine to support the nonviolent strategy of institutional academic boycotts, it is time for the AAUP to reconsider…

upright straw broom with wooden handle against a gray background

All of Them Should Go

BY DANIEL A. SEGAL The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and MIT did a famously terrible job responding to Representative Elise Stefanik’s questions at the congressional hearing on “antisemitism on college campuses” this past December. But so far, their failure has been treated either as a case of incompetence in the realm of…

From Florida to Barnard

BY HANK REICHMAN Today the New York Times published an article recounting the continuing struggle at Barnard College, the women’s college of Columbia University in New York, over the academic freedom and free speech rights of faculty and students.  To briefly summarize, three weeks after the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, the Department of…

A microphone in focus in front of a podium that holds a phone, a sheet of paper, a closed notepad, and a pen

What Those College Presidents Should Have Said

BY MARJORIE HEINS The disastrous December 5 congressional hearing in which three university presidents were lambasted for allegedly not dealing with antisemitism on campus was a political ambush from the start, and the presidents, instead of blandly acquiescing in some outrageously inappropriate questioning, needed to respond with righteous indignation. The tone was set early on…