scene of an outdoor protest about COVID-19 safety on the campus of the University of Oklahoma

There Will Still Be Singing in These Dark Times

BY AMIT BAISHYA AND JULIE ANN WARD “OU Days of Action” was organized on September 20 and 21 to coincide with the University of Oklahoma Board of Regents Meeting. This action was the culmination of a months-long process of appealing to OU’s upper administration to adopt basic, common-sense policies of COVID-19 mitigation, with little to…

front view of University of Oklahoma's Bizzell Memorial Library

OU-AAUP Demands Safe Working Conditions to Avert Crisis

BY AMIT BAISHYA, MICHAEL GIVEL, AND JULIE ANN WARD Last week, the University of Oklahoma (OU) AAUP chapter wrote an Open Letter to University Decision-Makers, published on our website and promoted on social media with over four hundred signatures from faculty, staff, students, and community members, to address OU decision-makers’ inadequate and deeply disappointing response…

front view of University of Oklahoma's Bizzell Memorial Library

Why Boundaries for Classroom Speech Matter

BY KELLI PYRON ALVAREZ In June, a colleague who did not attend my University of Oklahoma workshop “Anti-Racist Rhetoric & Pedagogies” decided to download the video and send it to off-campus parties. I cannot speak to his intent, but the result was that several organizations, including FIRE, misinterpreted and misconstrued the goal and purpose of…

front view of University of Oklahoma's Bizzell Memorial Library

FIRE!

BY MICHAEL GIVEL At many universities across the United States, a modern addition to central administrations has been some type of a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program or office. At the University of Oklahoma (OU), where I am a professor of political science, our DEI program is known as the Office of Diversity, Equity,…

front view of University of Oklahoma's Bizzell Memorial Library

Oklahoma Firestorm

BY JULIE A. WARD I was born in Oklahoma, and graduated from high school and college in this state. I am a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. And I am an associate professor at the University of Oklahoma. But even with my deep connections to this place, I often feel unwelcome in the…

Why Punishing Students for Racism at the University of Oklahoma Is Wrong, and Unconstitutional

University of Oklahoma President David Boren has shut down the Sigma Alpha Epsilon house, ordered students living there to leave, and expelled two students for leading a racist chant. These actions are a violation of the University of Oklahoma’s rules and, as FIRE points out, punishing these students is “almost certainly unconstitutional.” Some might wonder:…