New joint statement by members of #UCLA’s history department, compiled from testimony of faculty present at encampment during various periods and in response to last night’s police violence against students. We make 6 explicit calls of the university administration. Read at link below.
Here is a statement from a West Virginia Linguistics professor whose entire department has been eliminated. It provides additional context to the Provost's decision to cancel 38 majors and the tenure and untenured faculty lines associated with them.
Never a dull moment: my employer has just canceled the valedictorian's commencement speech, seemingly because they are afraid she will say something about human rights in #Gaza
"a swarm of on- and off-campus groups attacked Tabassum. They targeted her minor, resistance to genocide, as well as her pro-Palestinian views and “likes” expressed through her Instagram account."
"The last poem read aloud was titled “If I Must Die.” It was written, hauntingly, by a Palestinian poet and academic named Refaat Alareer who was killed weeks earlier by an Israeli airstrike. The poem ends: “If I must die, let it bring hope — let it be a tale.”
Soon after those lines were recited, the university administration shut the reading down"
Florida interprets it ban on DEI initiatives as " apply[ing] to all campus programs and activities in which the college or university “endorses or promotes a position” on “topics that polarize or divide society among political, ideological, moral, or religious beliefs, positions, or norms.”" https://newrepublic.com/article/176402/desantiss-war-woke-colleges-absurd-dangerous
It is hard to overstate how unconstitutional this is.
This is really quite authoritarian and fascist behaviour by the UK government.
Compiling dossiers on academics because they support basic rights for trans people, are against war and conflict and support minoritised groups including recognising issues faced by BIPOC.
Embrace #open principles, safeguard #AcademicFreedom, and support #DataAutonomy: why academic institutions should consider a transition from Twitter to Mastodon
"Education should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think. Universities should be expected to provide the conditions within which hard thought, and therefore strong disagreement, independent judgment, and the questioning of stubborn assumptions, can flourish in an environment of the greatest freedom."
See Kathleen with Annette Gordon-Reed, TOMORROW (Oct 19) in #Austin at In Conversation, 7:30pm at Stateside at the Paramount. Tickets still available: https://texasobserver.org/agr/
New Zealand microbiologist Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles is suing her employer, the University of Auckland, for not doing enough to protect her from the online/IRL abuse and harassment she endured as a high-profile scientist-communicator during the pandemic.
The case includes discussions of academic freedom, and the importance of institutions supporting academics to exercise their role as 'critic and conscience'.
But the counter is whether health and safety considerations pose a limitation to academic freedom. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03518-0 #pandemic#ScienceCommunication#scicomm#AcademicFreedom
A Texas A&M Regent says "McElroy’s hiring would derail the “purpose” outlined for the journalism program: “to get high-quality Aggie journalists with conservative values into the market.”
Tell me again how liberals are controlling university values? /s
Proud to be a part of this movement at #UCLA and walk along my colleagues in defense of our students and the broader principles of academic freedom, critical inquiry, and university autonomy.
Broad divestment from sponsors of state violence is—in my view—essential for the mission of an independent university. In today’s context of #Gaza, it’s even more pressing.
Statement by #USCAAUP on the #USC administration's decision to cancel 2024 valedictorian Tabassum's commencement speech:
"By casting aside the achievements and USC’s own recognition of such an acclaimed student, the USC administration does not merely create a chilling effect on the academic freedom of the entire USC community. It actively strangles it."
A brief re-#introduction as an ex-pat of the about-to-close econtwitter.net server...
I'm an economist who develops and applies (mostly using #rstats) methods to learn about the value of clinical and policy interventions for improving population health and health equity. I currently direct the #PhD program in Health Policy and Administration at #PennState and am a fierce advocate of public #highered, #academicfreedom and university shared governance. Alumnus of #UWMadison and #Georgetown.
The transnational Movement for a Free Academia have recently launched #theGothenburgManifesto to call for an academic system built on an ethics of care, openness, trust and integrity.
Please read and sign the Gothenburg Manifesto at https://freeacademia.org.
Join the Movement for a Free Academia and support our mission by sharing this call. 🌱
“Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza, academics in fields including politics, sociology, Japanese literature, public health, Latin American and Caribbean studies, Middle East and African studies, mathematics, education, and more have been fired, suspended, or removed from the classroom for pro-Palestine, anti-Israel speech.” #mccarthyism#palestine#IsraelWarCrimes#FreeSpeech#AcademicFreedom