Universities around the world are increasingly under threat from governments restricting their ability to teach and research freely. Higher education institutions are being targeted because they are the home of critical inquiry and the free exchange of ideas. And governments want to control universities out of fear that allowing them to operate freely might ultimately […] … learn more→

Last week, posters appeared at the University of Auckland inviting young white men to “assume the mantle of re-taking control of our own country” and to confront “anti-racism ideology”. The group was obviously unaware of the significance of the British High Commissioner’s expression of regret, in the same week, for the killing of several Māori people during their […] … learn more→

The case of the Durham PhD student, Matthew Hedges – who has been arrested and placed in solitary confinement on the charge of spying – exposes the extreme limits on academic freedom in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). But Hedges’s plight, while outrageous, is not altogether shocking for seasoned observers of the oil-rich Gulf monarchy. This year […] … learn more→

Librarians in the University of California system are represented by the American Federation of Teachers.  They are currently engaged in bargaining a new contract.  In the course of that process the UC-AFT proposed that the following underlined language be added to Article 1, Recognition, in the new contract: The University recognizes librarians as academic employees, and further recognizes […] … learn more→

Some time ago, a professor made a blog post, chastising a teacher for shutting down a student who advocated for, well, traditional marriage. Arguing for heterosexual marriage is a faux pas on campus today, and the school formed a committee to investigate this “inappropriate” behavior. A few posts on a blog. Seven members on the […] … learn more→

Joe Knott, one of the Republicans who dominate the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, published an op-ed on May 25 that imagines an alarming future for higher education under the headline “We need more conservative professors. Here’s how we can do that at UNC.” Knott generously declares his support for academic freedom: “If scholars are […] … learn more→

Tens of thousands of people recently demonstrated in the Hungarian capital of Budapest against attempts by their government to close the Central European University (CEU). This was the second large-scale demonstration in Budapest in as many weeks – with protesters turning out en masse to challenge recent amendments to the national law on higher education […] … learn more→

Today the Washington Post published an important op-ed piece, “If colleges keep killing academic freedom, civilization will die, too,” by José A. Cabranes, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  Cabranes, a Bill Clinton appointee and highly respected jurist, previously served as General Counsel for Yale University (1975-80) and on […] … learn more→

The culture of fear in higher education is quite remarkable. Publicly, we’re told we have freedom of speech and academic freedom, but the reality is quite clear that faculty are only free to talk about certain things, publicly or academically. And so we come to the latest firing for a professor saying the wrong thing: […] … learn more→

As news of the attempted military coup in Turkey unfolded, I was in Pennsylvania. Travelling in the US, I had coincidentally found myself in the home state of Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, who Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has singled out as the mastermind of the uprising. Gülen, once a close Erdoğan associate until he […] … learn more→