Academic Freedom

Speech under Authoritarianism (updated)

Governments in the United States are ramping up their attacks on freedom of speech, with state and federal officials getting people—including professors—fired or investigated for expressing their opinions about public figures, and the president suggesting he will shut down media that is critical of him and his allies. (more…)

Be Careful What You Teach: Trump’s Minions May Get You Fired

A lecturer in the English Department at Texas A & M University was fired from her position after a student in one of her courses complained that she was “not entirely sure is legal to be teaching… because according to our president, there’s only two genders… and also this very much goes against not only but a lot of people’s religious beliefs.” (more…)..

Philosopher Resigns from Naval War College in Protest of Trump’s & Hegseth’s Policies

Pauline M. Shanks Kaurin, a philosopher specializing in military ethics, just war theory, and applied ethics, has resigned from her position as the Admiral James B. Stockdale Chair in Professional Military Ethics at the Naval War College (Newport, Rhode Island), because she believes that “the kind of teaching and research the Navy once hired her to do will now be im..

University of Utah Cans History and Philosophy of Science Major Amidst Political and Administrative Chaos

One way public universities in Utah can earn back part of the $60 million in funding that the state legislature took from their budgets is by “showing that will be reallocated for high-demand and high-wage majors as the state pushes for higher education to be more job-focused,” according to the Salt Lake Tribune. (more…)

West Point Philosophy Professor Resigns After Trump’s Incursions on Academic Freedom (updated)

“I will be resigning after this semester from my tenured position at West Point after 13 years on the faculty. I cannot tolerate these changes, which prevent me from doing my job responsibly. I am ashamed to be associated with the academy in its current form.” (more…)

AAPT Board Condemns Trump’s Attacks on Higher Education

The board of directors of the American Association of Philosophy Teachers (AAPT) has issued a statement condemning “a series of Trump administration attacks on the core principles of higher education”. (more…)

Judge Orders ICE to Free Philosophy Major it Abducted

Mohsen Mahdawi, the graduating philosophy major at Columbia University who was taken into custody by hooded and masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents during his appointment for a US citizenship application interview, has been ordered freed by a federal judge, several news outlets have reported. (more…)

University Presidents Against “Government Overreach”

“As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” (more…)

Harvard Sues Trump Administration

Today, Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over the billions of dollars in funding it has cut and threatened to cut to the university and its researchers. (more…)

Columbia Philosophy Statement on Mahdawi / Fundraiser

The Department of Philosophy at Columbia University has issued a statement about Mohsen Mahdawi, the philosophy major taken by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this past Monday. (more…)

Canadian Association of University Teachers Issues US Travel Warning

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), a federation of independent associations and trade unions representing university teachers and other academic professionals has advised academics to refrain from “non-essential” travel to the United States.

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Harvard “will not negotiate over its independence” (updates)

“The University will not negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights.” (more…)

Will Columbia Be Taken Over by the Federal Government?

Columbia University is “one of the most premier research and teaching institutions in the world, and that institution dies tomorrow.” (more…)

On “Chilling Effects” and the “Rowdiness” of Free Speech

“Whatever reasons there are that might justify the state saying that free speech is not being protected, the fact that some people felt intimidated by the permitted rowdy and contentious speech of others cannot be among them. (more…)

Trump’s Attacks on Universities, A Continuing Series (updates)

Trump administration officials yesterday revealed that the president has ordered that $1 billion of federal funding for Cornell University and $790 million of federal funding for Northwestern University be withheld. (more…)

Philosophers’ Books among those Banned from US Naval Academy Library (updated)

In January, Donald Trump issued an executive order banning various books on race, gender, and other topics from public schools for kindergarten through grade 12. Last week Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the US Naval Academy that, though it is a college, the order applied to its library, too. (more…)

Israeli Gov’t Cancels Philosopher Who’s a Grandson of a Holocaust Survivor

Omri Boehm, associate professor of philosophy at the New School for Social Research, was scheduled to speak at the Buchenwald concentration camp liberation anniversary celebration this weekend. (more…)

AAUP & AFT Sue Departments of Justice, Education, and other Federal Agencies

Last week, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed a lawsuit to “challenges the Trump administration’s unlawful and unprecedented effort to overpower a university’s academic autonomy and control the thought, association, scholarship, and expression of its faculty and students.” (more…)

Students Protest, a Philosopher is Knifed, and Faculty are Unpaid in Serbia

Natalija Jovanović, dean of the Philosophy Faculty at the University of Niš in Serbia, was attending a student protest when a woman who opposed the protest reportedly threatened to throw acid on her and then cut her with a knife. (more…)

Columbia, Trump, and the Peril of Appeasement

On March 13th, the Trump administration sent Columbia University a list of demands it must meet as a precondition for restoring $400 million in grant funding to the university that the administration had cancelled. Last Friday, Columbia University said it would meet those demands. (more…)

A bill introduced into the Kansas State House of Representatives last week would, if made law, make it impossible for state institutions of higher education to award faculty a status that substantially protects their employment, as tenure traditionally does. (more…)

Trying & Writing about New Teaching Methods: Does It Require IRB Approval?

A philosophy professor interested in writing an article about her experiences trying out new teaching techniques was told by her administration that in order to permissibly do so, she would need approval from the university’s institutional review board (IRB). (more…)

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