BY JOAN W. SCOTT In the annals of academic freedom, Chandler Davis (Chan, as he was known to family and friends), who died last month, was a towering figure. His principled refusal to comply (on First Amendment grounds) with a HUAC investigation of communism at the University of Michigan, led to his dismissal from the…
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 HANK REICHMAN On October 30 I had the great honor and privilege of delivering the 29th annual Davis, Markert, Nickerson Academic Freedom Lecture at the University of Michigan. In 1954 the University of Michigan suspended and then terminated Professors H. Chandler Davis and Mark Nickerson, a tenured faculty member, and suspended but then reinstated…
BY DAVID PALUMBO-LIU, STANFORD UNIVERSITY The punishment of John Cheney-Lippold, a University of Michigan professor who declined to write a letter of recommendation for a student who wished to study in Israel, has grown in a particularly ugly and disturbing manner. Cheney-Lippold is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) that argues…
BY DAVID PALUMBO-LIU I appreciate the opportunity to respond to Professor Hank Reichman’s criticism of our statement in support of Professor John Cheney-Lippold’s refusal to write a letter of recommendation for a student wishing to participate in a Study Abroad program in Israel. Cheney-Lippold cites as his reason his commitment to the Boycott, Divestment, and…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday, John Wilson posted a comment on my post “Standing with Professional Ethics” that merits a longer response than is appropriate for a simple comment. I also want to use this opportunity to reply to another response to my post, which came from an AAUP leader via private email, and to make…
BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday a group of faculty supporters of the BDS movement posted to this blog a statement, “Standing with John Cheney-Lippold,” which called on readers to support University of Michigan Professor Cheney-Lippold’s decision not to write a letter of recommendation for a student seeking to study for a semester in Israel. They offer…
BY Richard Falk, Cynthia Franklin, Terri Ginsberg, Salah Hassan, David Klein, Adam Miyashiro, Bill V. Mullen, David Palumbo-Liu, Andrew Ross, and Snehal Shingavi John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor of American Culture at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor, has been criticized by some supporters of the State of Israel for declining to write a letter of recommendation…
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has signed a new law banning unionization by graduate student research assistants at public colleges. It’s appalling that students are denied their fundamental right to form a union simply because they also happen to be students. Even if you dislike the idea of graduate student unions, you should dislike even more…