58 percent of postsecondary educational institutions now employ a post-tenure review process. This is up from 46 percent in 2000. Tenure traditionally means that a professor has earned guaranteed job-security … Continue reading “Did You Know? Post-Tenure Review is Increasingly Common for University Faculty”
Editor’s note: This is part 1 of a two-part series of articles. Part 2 can be found here. Does academic freedom protect faculty members who promote such activities as genocide, … Continue reading “On Academic Freedom, Public Comments, and the “Fitness” of Faculty”
On September 29, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) announced that it is investigating what it calls “egregious violations of principles of academic governance and persistent structural racism in … Continue reading “Why Is the AAUP Investigating UNC?”
For a few years in the mid-2000s, David Horowitz was one of the most prominent figures on the campus scene. He didn’t have a PhD and he didn’t belong to … Continue reading “David Horowitz’s Insight About the Academic Left”
Among the duties of a university’s board of trustees, there is perhaps no bigger responsibility than helping to select the leader of the campus—the chancellor/president. Such an important responsibility requires … Continue reading “Should Universities Be Outsourcing Their Chancellor Searches?”
A report by the American Association of University Professor describes potential threats to academic freedom since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
A key portion of the report, which was prepared by a special committee tasked with “assessing risks to academic freedom and free inquiry posed by the nation’s response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,” looks at provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which the report states “gravely threaten academic freedom.” In general, the report states, “The speed with which the law was introduced and passed [in October 2001], the lack of deliberation surrounding its enactment, and the directions it provides for law-enforcement agencies have raised troubling questions about its effects on privacy, civil liberties, and academic freedom.”
If the announced concerns of the American Association of University Professors’ special committee to study academic freedom in the wake of Sept. 11 are any indication, look for more rarefied hand-wringing over the academic left’s travails and cricket-chirruping silence over others’.
On October 5 the American Association of University Professors issued a statement denouncing criticism of professors opposing the war on terrorism by those who seek to “demonize” them.