American professors who have played prominent roles in fighting the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement have weighed in on a controversial academic ethics code being considered for implementation in Israel. The Alliance for Academic Freedom (AAF) released a statement earlier this…
read moreThe free-speech watchdog FIRE is a familiar irritant to college administrators, but until this past year, the rest of the country wasn’t paying much attention. An “epic” year is what Greg Lukianoff, president and chief executive of the Foundation for…
read moreAfter the resolution on divestment from Israel failed in the ASSU Senate last week following a heated debate, I wrote to The Stanford Daily with criticism of the resolution and the polarization it caused. I asked the senators to replace…
read moreLast week, Lawrence H. Summers, the Charles W. Eliot University Professor and president emeritus of Harvard University, and former Secretary of the treasury, delivered a lecture on “Academic Freedom and Anti-Semitism” at Columbia University. He recalled that in 2002, when…
read moreThis past week I delivered a lecture at Columbia University on academic freedom and anti-Semitism. I argued that it is the essence of academic freedom that all members of our community can hold whatever views they wish and express them…
read moreThe University of Illinois violated key principles of shared governance and academic freedom in its review — and rejection — of the hiring of Steven G. Salaita, a faculty panel has found. The faculty panel’s report, released in December was…
read moreA major debate has erupted concerning academic freedom and the responsibilities it entails. Last October, Steven Salaita received an offer to join the faculty in the American Indian Studies Program at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. The offer was…
read moreMuch has been made of the spate of episodes on university campuses involving students and faculty seeking to block graduation speakers with whom they vehemently disagree. In the name of tolerance, transparency and “conversation,” too often the intolerant, a numerical…
read moreThere was a time when people looking for intellectual debate turned away from politics to the university. Political backrooms bred slogans and bagmen; universities fostered educated discussion. But when students in the 1960s began occupying university property like the thugs…
read moreHarvard student Sandra Y.L. Korn recently proposed in The Harvard Crimson that academics should be stopped if their research is deemed oppressive. Arguing that “academic justice” should replace “academic freedom,” she writes: “If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why…
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