BY RACHEL IDA BUFF On April 7, Marquette University Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), with full knowledge and consent by the university administration, planted 41,000 flags to symbolize the death toll from the ongoing genocide in Gaza. That night, three Zionist educators not affiliated with the university desecrated the memorial. One of them carried…
POSTED BY JENNIFER RUTH AAUP President Irene Mulvey and the AAUP chapters of Barnard and Columbia released statements regarding Minouche Shafik’s testimony before the House Education and Workforce Committee. Below is Mulvey’s statement, followed by the chapters’ statement. Wednesday, before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, President Shafik threw academic freedom and Columbia…
BY HANK REICHMAN As a Columbia alum (College ’69), participant in that university’s 1968 student rebellion, advocate for academic freedom and free expression rights, and as a Jew, I have followed developments at Columbia over the past few days with great interest. On Wednesday came the appearance by the co-chairs of the university’s Board of…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Former AAUP President Cary Nelson’s latest book is Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on Basic Principles (Academic Studies Press, 2024). John K. Wilson interviewed him by email about the book in Part I of this discussion. Here in Part II, Nelson examines issues raised since the manuscript was completed last…
BY HANK REICHMAN Last week I was scheduled to participate in a Round Table discussion of a recently published book, Contingent Faculty and the Remaking of Higher Education: A Labor History, edited by Eric Fure-Slocum and Claire Goldstene, in a session sponsored by the Labor and Working Class History Association at the Organization of American…
BY JONATHAN REES I spent a couple of days over spring break in New Orleans checking out museums. As is my tendency, I also walked a few blocks away from the French Quarter to visit an independent book store. Baldwin & Co. is great, but that’s a post for another blog. What I want to…
POSTED BY HANK REICHMAN On Wednesday, April 17 when faculty members nationwide will be observing a National Day of Action for Higher Education, Columbia University President Minouche Shafik is scheduled to testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee. On December 5, that committee heard testimony from the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University…
BY JOHN K. WILSON Former AAUP President Cary Nelson has just published his latest book, Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on Basic Principles (Academic Studies Press, 2024). John K. Wilson interviewed him by email about the book. John K. Wilson: You and I disagreed about the Steven Salaita firing at UIUC. You argue…
BY MATTHEW BOEDY In Georgia we decided to conduct a small survey of faculty opinions about shared governance. And the results are not merely shocking but show the direct effects from Georgia’s university system gutting tenure in 2021. Using the AAUP’s shared governance survey tool, we asked faculty at a large university to tell us…
BY MARK S. JAMES This week, President Biden announced his most ambitious plan to forgive student loan debt since the US Supreme Court ruled his last sweeping effort unconstitutional last year. I’ve written about my own experience with student loan debt forgiveness and being what I call “post-debt.” The journal that published the article is…
BY THE BERKELEY FACULTY ASSOCIATION It is expected that the University of California Board of Regents will announce the appointment of a new Chancellor of the Berkeley campus on April 10. On April 1, in anticipation of this appointment, the Berkeley Faculty Association posted the following open letter. UPDATE 4/10: The Regents have announced the…
BY AUDREY BERLOWITZ I am a PhD candidate studying undergraduate teaching and learning at the University of North Carolina Greensboro, which serves a predominantly multiracial, multiethnic first-generation student population. Though students have been advised by higher-ups to keep our energies on our studies and our thoughts unsullied by internal university politics, I have juggled both…
On April 17, higher ed unions, AAUP chapters, and student organizations across the U.S. are coming together for a national day of action to fight back against the coordinated assault on teaching and learning, and to mobilize for a system of higher education that serves the public good. Our aim is not just to beat…
BY JOHN K. WILSON On March 27, 2024, Texas governor Greg Abbott issued an executive order compelling “all Texas higher education institutions” to “update free speech policies to address the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses and establish appropriate punishments, including expulsion from the institution,” ensure that “groups such as the…
BY CAPRICE LAWLESS Most community college faculty are paid poverty-level wages and so can’t afford the laptops they need to teach, especially when they teach remotely. Even so, neither state lawmakers nor college administrators budget for them. Perhaps, I thought, a national initiative might provide them the technology they need to serve the nation’s most…
