BY HANK REICHMAN When last October Zoom declined to host seminars at San Francisco State University and New York University because one of the speakers, Leila Khaled, was associated with a group deemed “terrorist” by the U.S. government, which the company suggested might make it legally vulnerable, faculty groups and defenders of academic freedom protested. …
BY HANK REICHMAN In a statement, “On Academic Freedom for our Higher Education Users,” Zoom has announced that it will leave content moderation issues to universities for virtually all matter “related to the institution’s academics or operations” and engage in content-based censorship only under rare, clearly delineated conditions. In short, the company now says it…
BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ACADEMIC SENATE’S UNIVERSITY COMMITTEE ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM The following statement from the University of California faculty senate Committee on Academic Freedom was sent on December 23, 2020, unanimously endorsed by the Academic Council at its January 2021 meeting, and forwarded to the University of California provost on Feb. 4, 2021…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN Former homeland security secretary and Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, who earlier this year stepped down as president of the University of California system after seven years and retreated to a faculty position in the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, has joined the Board of Zoom, the company announced…
BY THE AAUP On October 28, the AAUP sent a letter to New York University president Andrew Hamilton to express concern about the cancellation by Zoom of an October 23 event hosted by the NYU chapter of the AAUP and co-sponsored by NYU departments and institutes. The text of the letter appears below. Dear President…
BY THE NYU-AAUP EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 10/23/2020 Today, Zoom unilaterally shut down a webinar hosted by the NYU chapter of the AAUP, and co-sponsored by several NYU departments and institutes. The webinar was scheduled to discuss the censorship, by Zoom and other big tech platforms, of an open classroom session last month at SFSU, featuring the…
POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH The following is a call to action shared by the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) Organizing Collective regarding the censorship by Zoom and Facebook of an online event at San Francisco State University. Read a previous blog post about it by John Wilson and others…
BY THE NATIONAL COALITION AGAINST CENSORSHIP The National Coalition Against Censorship today sent this letter, co-signed by the AAUP, to Zoom, Facebook, and Youtube regarding the censorship of an event at San Francisco State University. October 8, 2020 Dear Mr. Yuan, Mr. Zuckerberg, and Ms. Wojcicki: As organizations dedicated to protecting freedom of expression, the…
BY HANK REICHMAN If you weren’t familiar with Zoom before the COVID-19 pandemic, you must be now. Everyone is using it — for faculty and staff meetings, seminar talks and panels, political and union organizing, socializing with friends and family, holding remote weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, and, of course, teaching online classes. And, yes, we’re…
BY NOLAN HIGDON AND MICKEY HUFF The following essay appeared on Project Censored’s website and is reposted with permission. The response to COVID-19 by governing institutions has altered the lives and practices of people across the nation, including the students, faculty, and staff in higher education. One of the biggest changes in educational institutions has…