Academe Article

Sexual Harassment Guidelines

The AAUP applauded recent efforts by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to address systemic gender inequalities in the US educational system by instructing institutions to develop clear procedures to address sexual harassment and violence.

In two letters sent to the Office for Civil Rights over the summer, the AAUP’s staff and president and the chair of the AAUP’s Committee on Women in the Academic Profession also expressed concern about two aspects of the advice the office issued to institutions in April.

Amicus Brief Supports Faculty Speech Rights

The AAUP recently filed an amicus brief on behalf of Loretta Capeheart, a tenured professor of justice studies at Northeastern Illinois University. The case is the latest in a series of cases in which lower courts have relied on the US Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in Garcetti v. Ceballos, which stated that a public employee can be disciplined for speech made as part of the employee’s official duties.

Map Tracks Coverage of Program Closures

The past three issues of Academe have focused on the impact of the financial crisis facing higher education—on organizing efforts, on the humanities, and on state support for public universities. As articles in the current issue make clear, reductions in state support are forcing public colleges and universities, in particular, to raise tuition and fees.

Balancing Academic Freedom and the Public’s Right to Know

In Academic Freedom and the Public’s Right to Know: How to Counter the Chilling Effect of FOIA Requests on Scholarship, an issue brief published by the American Constitution Society in September, AAUP senior counsel Rachel Levinson-Waldman discusses ways to protect the “competing interests” of academic freedom and the public’s interest in transparency of public institutions and their work.

Academe Launches Blog

The AAUP is pleased to announce the launch of Academe Blog: http://academeblog.org/. Like Academe, this blog will explore a wide range of topics in higher education—academic freedom, governance of colleges and universities, working conditions of contingent faculty and gradate employees, collective bargaining, faculty workplace issues, work-family balance, funding, and legislation affecting higher education, to name a few.

Budget Cuts and Educational Quality

Policy makers—and the public—need to understand the potentially devastating effects of cuts to higher education.

New Universities

For public universities in states like Washington, the temptation to privatize is becoming overwhelming.

Intellectual Life and the University of Commerce

A revaluation of teaching could help British universities cope with the government’s destructive reforms.

The Escalation of Business as Usual

Academic plans are swallowing up more of the processes associated with research, teaching, and community outreach as the corporatization of higher education accelerates.

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