USFSP regional chancellor Sophia Wisniewska has been fired after the school learned that she went to Atlanta to ride out Hurricane Irma while allegedly suggesting that she was still at her post in St. Petersburg. USFSP regional chancellor Sophia Wisniewska was cited for her alleged incompetence and “lack of leadership” — a view of System President Judy Genshaft that some on campus contested.
Continue reading “Academic AWOL: USF Fires Chancellor For Fleeing To Atlanta During Hurricane Irma”
John Jay College has placed adjunct professor Michael Issacson on leave after a rather shocking tweet that “Some of y’all might think it sucks being an anti-fascist teacher at John Jay College but I think it’s a privilege to teach future dead cops.” Issacson is a known supporter and activist with Antifa, an organization that I have previously criticized. His tweet led to a national outcry, though we have been debating this issue of professors and teachers exercising free speech outside of their academic settings. In this case however Issacson was referring directly to his employer and his teaching position. The John Jay College of Criminal Justice is part of the City University of New York.
We have been discussing how faculty around the country are supporting the abandonment of free speech principles to bar speakers and speech with which they disagree. The most extreme form of this rejection of classical liberal values is the antifa movement. We have seen faculty physically attack speakers or destroy messages that they oppose. We have also seen faculty physically attacked and intimidated. In some of these incidents, other faculty have supported students in shutting down speakers or fellow academics (here and here). The latest example of faculty opposing free speech is a letter of over 200 University of California, Berkeley professors and faculty are calling for the shutdown of classes and activities during “free speech week.” To the dismay of these professors, free speech week will include speakers with whom they disagree. Thus, they have posted a letter that not only seeks a boycott of free speech but have proclaimed that certain speech (in this case speech they do not like) is unworthy of free speech protection. Note the faculty and Ph.D students are calling for a boycott of classes and all campus activities, not just the speeches themselves. Turning off the lights and fleeing the campus at the approach of opposing views hardly fits with the school’s motto of “Fiat Lux” (Let There Be Light).
The only thing worse than Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government appointing Chelsea Manning as fellow was the school’s withdraw of the fellowship. The school today succeeded in demonstrating to the world that its fellowships have zero intellectual content by first appointing Manning without a clear explanation of her expected academic contributions and then terminating the appointment under pressure. As academics, we are not supposed to remove academic appointments because individuals are controversial or unpopular. If Harvard was sticking by its academic reasons for the appointment, it should stick by its appointee.
Continue reading “Harvard Rescinds Manning Fellowship Under Pressure”
Berkeley geared up for the arrival of a conservative speaker, Ben Shapiro, on campus yesterday with a huge police presence, closed buildings, and . . . counseling. The counseling is for students and employees whose “sense of safety and belonging” becomes compromised by having a conservative speaker like Shapiro speaking somewhere on campus.
Thomas Jefferson called an educated public as “the only safe depositories of their own liberty.” If so, a new poll conducted by the University of Pennsylvania suggests that we have a serious problem. The poll made a truly alarming finding that many Americans cannot name a single first amendment right. Penn’s Annenberg Public Policy Center found 37 percent could not name any of the five rights protected by First Amendment and fewer than half (48 percent) could name freedom of speech.
Below is my column on the decision of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to rescind the highly controversial “Dear Colleague letter” of the Obama Administration. The letter, which made sweeping changes to educational policy, was never put through any notice and comment period under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). At the time, schools and faculty objected to the stripping of basic due process protections from our students. However, politicians are now denouncing those who want to restore due process as soft on sexual abuse.
One of those denouncing DeVos is Texas lawyer and adjunct law professor Rob Ranco who said that he would be fine with DeVos being sexually assaulted. Ranco has now resigned from his law firm, the Carson Law Firm, after apologizing for his public statement. Ranco is reportedly an adjunct professor of paralegal studies at Austin Community College.
I have long criticized the erosion of due process rights on our campuses, particularly the unilateral action taken by the Obama Administration.
Here is the column:
We have been discussing the rise of groups on campuses that assert the right not to simply protest but to prevent other students from hearing speakers or participating in events. The latest such incident occurred last week at the University of Virginia where members of a social justice group called UVA Students United disrupted a “cops and robbers”-themed party at a campus fraternity. The group would not allow a party that it claimed made “a joke of systems that kill and brutalize marginalized communities.” Ultimately, the party was canceled.
A couple of faculty members at the Elliott School of International Affairs sent me an email yesterday from their dean, former Ambassador Reuben E. Brigety, II that they found unsettling and unwise. The school has adopted a policy that all panels in the future at the school cannot be composed of a single gender and that “Non-adherence to this policy could result in cancellation of the event.” The policy raises serious questions of academic freedom and the subordination of intellectual content in favor of the diversity policies. No one has suggested that Dean Brigety is likely to impose mandatory quotas and disciplinary actions. He is an experienced diplomat at a nationally respected graduate school, though he has had controversial moments during this tenure as dean. However, there has been no real discussion of the implications of these policies and how they impact the academic mission of universities like George Washington.
Continue reading “GW International School Announces Policy Of Gender Diversity Of Panels”
I will be participating in a panel today on the Supreme Court’s October Term 2017 with a stellar panel of experts at George Washington University. This has the makings of a historic term with issues ranging from President Trump’s travel ban to gerrymandering to religious objections to providing services for same-sex weddings. The panel will speak about possible new cases and possible outcomes in existing cases with many leading Supreme Court journalists and lawyers in attendance.
NASA’s Juno spacecraft completed its seventh flyby of Jupiter and sent more stunning pictures of its raging beauty. The pass on September 1st put the spacecraft within 2,200 miles of the planet.Continue reading “Jupiter In Full Raging Glory: NASA Releases New Photos Of Giant Planet”
Michigan State University is being sued after it refused to rent space on campus for white nationalist Richard Spencer to speak later this month. The rental was requested by Georgia State University student Cameron Padgett for an event on-campus at the Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center.
Miami University in Ohio lost a major case in court after a student appealed his ban from the university after being accused on sexual misconduct. U.S. District Judge Michael Barrett ordered that the anonymous student known as “John Nokes” reinstated and found glaring unfairness in the rules and procedures of the university. As I have previously discussed, the Obama Administration forced many schools to limit due process rights of accused students in sexual misconduct cases.
A Cambridge University student with Pembroke College has become persona non grata after a disgusting display in front of a homeless man. When unemployed crane operator Ryan Davies asked for money, Ronald Coyne burned a £20 note in front of him as a taunt. The video was posted on YouTube and Coyne is now internationally despised.
Continue reading “Cambridge Student Denounced After Taunting Homeless Man By Burning £20 Note”