On Threats to Academic Freedom, University Governance, and Safety at the University of Pennsylvania

BY THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA CHAPTER, AAUP The following statement was issued on October 28, 2023. Over the past few weeks, the Executive Committee of the University of Pennsylvania chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP-Penn) has heard from scores of colleagues who, like us, are gravely concerned about violations of…

Amy Wax, Academic Freedom, “Official” Positions, and the “Fitness” Standard

BY HANK REICHMAN Yesterday Princeton political scientist and legal scholar Keith Whittington posted to this blog a piece entitled “Academic Freedom, Even for Amy Wax.”  Wax is a University of Pennsylvania law professor whose extramural expression, most recently at the pro-Trump National Conservatism Conference, has been widely condemned as intolerant and racist.  More than 1,000…

Academic Freedom, Even for Amy Wax

Guest blogger Keith E. Whittington is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Politics at Princeton University and the author of Speak Freely: Why Universities Must Defend Free Speech. Amy Wax, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, has once again annoyed her colleagues and students and provoked calls for her prompt dismissal. It…

Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

In a posting last week on Minding the Campus, Herbert London endorsed an effort to banish anti-Semitism on campus, noting “The Israel Law Center warns that colleges and universities ‘may be liable for massive damage’ if they fail to prevent anti-Semitism. London also praises the Israel Law Center’s reference to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling…