The Academy
-
More trouble afoot at UT Austin
Psychology professor Art Markman has been removed from an administrative position due to “ideological differences” with University leadership, which now consists in a President with no academic background, and a Provost who does have academic credentials, but whose primary qualification appears to be his conservative bona fides. Contrary to some reporting, academic freedom does not…
-
Vanderbilt, Wash U/St. Louis among schools “in dialogue” with Trump Admin about the extortionist “compact” that violates academic freedom
So CHE reports. Faculty at those schools need to let their leaders know that any school that signs on to a Trump compact will become the target of a nationwide boycott!
-
Universities continue to reject Trump’s “compact”
Besides MIT, Brown, Penn, and the University of Southern California have all declined. Again, if any school accepts the compact, then academics must boycott that university, and treat it as a pariah. CHE has a useful piece by some leading academic freedom experts (David Rabban, Robert Post, Keith Whittington) and other academic defenders of free…
-
Cornell suspends Jewish and pro-Palestinian history professor (UPDATED)
MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY–UPDATED Given how much federal money is at stake for Cornell, it’s hard not to interpret this incident as a case of “anticipatory obedience.” If the account of the students in the seminar is correct, then the professor, correctly, asked a disruptive student (who was Israeli) to leave the class, not…
-
Trump now offering his “compact” to all universities
Academics must make a commitment to boycott any university that accepts the “compact,” given that it violates core academic freedom values. Please share that idea widely!
-
Will the current authoritarian administration in Washington DC be appeased….
…if universities adopt a non-discrimination principle regarding political ideology? Universities obviously cannot agree to the administration’s outrageous demand to hire based on “conservative” political ideology and to shut down programs hostile to “conservative ideas.” But universities could, consistent with academic freedom, endorse a “statement of non-discrimination based on political ideology”: All candidates for faculty positions…
-
Eisgruber’s selective account of the universities and free speech
Len Gutkin at CHE holds Princeton President’s Eisgruber’s feet to the fire, rightly so.
-
MIT responds to Trump “compact”: no thanks
The full response from the MIT President is here, and is worth reading. She makes the correct point that scientific funding should be awarded based on scientific merit. Unfortunately, prior administrations have not always observed that principle (recall, e.g., when “diversity” was a criterion [or strong desideratum] for federal science funding), but the Trump proposal…
-
Trump’s latest attempt to coerce universities: his proposed “compact”
I have only found the full text on Reddit, so I link to that. Put aside that conditioning federal funding on adopting the government’s viewpoint is a textbook First Amendment violation (at least in the old days!). I’d like to call attention to one provision in particular (some of the provisions are actually banal, requiring…
-
A different approach to academic assessment in the age of AI
Philosopher Matthew Hammerton comments; an excerpt: Prohibition simply doesn’t work when you can’t enforce it. Telling students not to use AI is like telling them not to think about pink elephants. The result is a two-tiered system where conscientious students follow the rules while the rest can cheat with impunity. This breeds cynicism and erodes trust in higher education.…
-
Naval Academy cancels talk by philosopher Alec Walen…
…because he had criticized the monster child on social media. Since the military academies, under the authoritarian Trump regime, no longer educate, I wonder whether U.S. News & World Report will drop them from their “liberal arts colleges” rankings? (Thanks to Matt Lister for the pointer.) [This post was not part of the export file…
-
One in four professors in American South (esp. Florida, South Carolina, and Texas) looking to get out
From a new AAUP study: Many professors in the US south, particularly in Florida, South Carolina and Texas, are considering leaving their state because of the impact the political climate is having on education, according to a new survey by the American Association of Professors. Of those interviewed in the survey, roughly a quarter of…
-
Farewell to Academia.edu
It was never a very good site, I thought, but now they’re getting greedy and stupid. Delete your account if you have one.
-
Meanwhile, in the fascist state of Florida…
…a retired law professor has his “emeritus” status stripped because of his lawful political expression.
Georgy Maksimovich pointed me to this article in Russian: https://novayagazeta.ru/articles/2026/05/25/antisovetskie-filosofskie-kontratseptsii