BY FRANK VON HIPPEL Like many Americans, I felt distressed about the Trump Administration’s attacks on science and scientists following the 2016 election, especially as those attacks related to critical environmental issues such as climate change and pollution. I participated in the March for Science, but at the same time pondered what I could do…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH One of the neologisms related to the Trump administration with the most pernicious implications may be the phrase “task traitor.” It refers to the appointment of cabinet secretaries and other executive officers who have a deep-seated antipathy toward the departments and agencies that that are being appointed to head. Although I…
POSTED BY KELLY HAND The new issue of Academe considers the state of the academic profession in a political climate that has exacerbated existing threats to higher education. Articles focus on challenges to academic freedom and collective bargaining, the recent upsurge in harassment campaigns targeting faculty members, and faculty activism. Follow the links in the table of…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL There has always been a historic tension between America’s colleges and universities and the government, whether at the state or federal level. It’s unavoidable. Once the government began to fund students and institutions in the late 20th century, its leaders believed that they had a right and responsibility to oversee the…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The following news release has been issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists: As U.S. President Donald Trump announces his “Fake Media” awards, the Committee to Protect Journalists names its global Press Oppressors—world leaders who use rhetoric, legal action, and censorship to try to silence their critics. The list features leaders…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The New York Times Editorial Board has published a lengthy editorial on the Trump administration’s persistent efforts to deny scientific consensus and to place in positions of power people who share that disdain for scientific truths that conflict with narrow corporate interests and Far-Right ideological talking points. The editorial begins by…
POSTED BY MARTIN KICH The Trump administration has been designating a theme for each week—most recently, Infrastructure Week, Workforce Development Week, and, this week’s rendition, Technology Week. (I recognize that Workforce Development Week involved a much-publicized visit to a community college, but I doubt that Trump, DeVos, or anyone else in his administration would see…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL On June 1, President Trump announced that he was taking the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, making the U.S., Syria, and Nicaragua (which felt the deal was not sufficiently ambitious), the only nations not to support the agreement. The Paris Agreement sets a series of goals and is…
BY KELLY HAND We already knew from the Trump administration’s initial “skinny” budget proposal, released in March, that higher education would be on the chopping block. The fleshed-out budget proposal released on May 22 details cuts that would have a devastating impact on student aid, the arts and humanities, scientific research, and international education. Following up…