academic freedom 
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SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
1/24/2023
College Faculty: After K-12, Curriculum Laws are Coming For You
by James Grossman and Jeremy C. Young
State colleges involved with concurrent enrollment programs that allow high school students to take classes for credit are already susceptible to laws purporting to fight "indoctrination" in the secondary school curriculum. More intrusions on academic freedom are coming.
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SOURCE: American Association of University Professors
1/20/2023
AAUP: Florida's Censorship Cannot Stand
"That the only ideas the presidents wish to suppress relate to race is revealing."
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SOURCE: Tampa Bay Times
1/20/2023
National AAUP Condemns Florida University Presidents' Pledge to Root out Critical Race Theory
"The national organization, founded in 1915, stated it was 'appalled at the blatant violation of academic freedom' and said it was exploring options, including an investigation and possible censure."
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
1/12/2023
Hamline Controversy Shows How Religion and Neoliberal Administration Converge to Reject Expertise
by Alexander Jabbari
An instructive contrast can be drawn from a 1997 controversy over a frieze depicting Muhammad on the wall of the United States Supreme Court. Since then, post-9/11 Islamophobia, a culture of deliberate trolling under the banner of free speech, and the rise of corporate-style university management have drained the capacity for nuance.
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
1/17/2023
Blasphemy Is Not a DEI Issue
by Joan W. Scott
Hamline has mistaken the vital imperative of care and respect toward members of minority communities on campus with capitulation to religious censorship, which a university cannot abide.
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
1/13/2023
Hamline Administrators Won't Let the Academic Freedom Controversy Die
Adminstrators and the local chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations have defended a personnel decision that academic freedom advocate have called egregious.
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SOURCE: Dallas Morning News
1/16/2023
Islamic World Scholar: Hamline Mistaken to Fire Instructor
by Ahmad Sadri
Hamline University deprived its students—including Muslims—of the chance to learn about a multiplicity of views within the faith.
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SOURCE: CNN
1/9/2023
The Hamline Fiasco is no Isolated Incident
by David M. Perry
The key issues at stake in the dismissal of an adjunct art history professor for showing a reverential image of the Prophet Muhammad aren't about campus culture or religious freedom. They're about administrative power and labor relations in modern academia.
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
12/29/2022
Most of All, Hamline's Decision Offends Me as a Muslim
by Amna Khalid
Hamline University, in firing an art history instructor for showing an image of the Prophet Muhammad (with a content warning, in an optional exercise), has not only exemplified how risk-averse bureaucracies use inclusive language to dismiss faculty expertise, it also insulted Muslims by associating a vast and diverse set of cultures with fundamentalist theology.
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SOURCE: Tablet
12/19/2022
The Takeover: The Self-Righteous Faculty and their Self-Righteous Students
by Russell Jacoby
A past critic of the self-proclaimed academic radicals of the 1980s used to think they were really careerists posing as leftists without impact on society. Now, he thinks they've changed the culture for the worse.
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
12/9/2022
Are Conservative Courts Giving Professors a Right to Mistreat Transgender Students?
by Andrew Koppelman
Under the guise of an expansive view of "religious freedom," courts are enshrining the ability of professors to engage in discriminatory conduct.
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
12/6/2022
Can FIRE's Free Expression Crusade Work Off Campus?
The organization is pursuing a rebranding as an advocate for free expression off-campus. Supporters cheer its pledge to support free debate; detractors argue the group is advancing conservative complaints about "wokeness."
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SOURCE: Academe Blog
12/5/2022
Who Controls the Curriculum in Florida?
by Timothy V. Kaufman-Osborn
A federal court's ruling that Florida can't enforce it's "Stop WOKE" Act is a win for academic freedom, but not a total victory. Faculty must reassert the prerogative of setting curricular guidelines against administrators who see their role as serving the state.
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SOURCE: Politico
11/30/2022
DeSantis-Backed School Boards Flex Power to Oust District Leaders
"Both Sarasota and Brevard’s school boards put the superintendents on the chopping block the same day that new members endorsed by DeSantis and conservative organizations like Moms for Liberty were sworn into office."
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
11/30/2022
Separating Good and Silly Criticism of FIRE in the Campus Speech Debate
by Jeffrey Sachs
One leading commenter on questions of academic freedom evaluates the criticism of an oganization on the front lines, concluding that many critics are asking silly questions and leaving significant ones aside.
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
11/28/2022
The "Private Little Hell" of Florida's 1950s Anti-Gay Faculty Investigations
At least 39 faculty members were forced out of Florida universities under the Johns Committee's investigation of alleged homosexual behavior. But the figure doesn't include the other lives and careers wrecked by the crusade.
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SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
11/9/2022
U of Chicago Postpones (not Cancels) Course on "Problem of Whiteness" For Security Concerns
The course, which examines the makings and effects of the historical, political and cultural category of "whiteness" was a target for critics who mistakenly presented it as an example of "anti-white hate."
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SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
11/7/2022
Controversial Stanford "Academic Freedom" Panel Proceeds
"While many other speakers described higher education’s commitment to the pursuit of truth as fading, the conference was heavy on anecdotes and speculative diagnostics relative to clear data."
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
10/24/2022
What Should Stanford Make of a Closed "Academic Freedom" Conference?
by Len Gutkin
"A conference on academic freedom to which the uninvited are unfree to attend is a parody."
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SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
10/18/2022
The Insidious Two-Step University Administrations Use to Squelch Faculty Speech
by Joshua Clover
Carnegie Mellon's treatment of a professor who made a controversial tweet about Queen Elizabeth and colonialism shows the willingness of universities to capitulate to outrage at the expense of free speech, as well as their lack of support for their faculty.
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