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SB 5 opponents, including some AAUP members, packed hearing and overflow rooms in Columbus, Ohio, at a committee hearing Wednesday. SB 5, a piece of legislation introduced last week, seeks to prohibit Ohio public employees, including faculty at state universities and colleges, from collective bargaining.
On February 3, AAUP General Secretary Gary Rhoades testified before the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. The committee advises the Secretary of Education on matters of accreditation.
An AAUP investigating committee reports that, in suspending the faculty senate and refusing to grant governance rights to contingent faculty, the administration of RPI “contravened basic principles of shared academic governance.”
Because faculty members have long contributed to democratic debate by expressing their views in the public sphere, it is especially notable and worrisome when they become targets of what nearly amount to an American Fatwa.
Update (2/1): Kristopher Petersen-Overton announced that he has been rehired. Cary Nelson called the rehiring "a victory for academic freedom and for the faculty."
The AAUP, along with thirty-seven other groups, urges the Obama administration to promptly adopt strong and enforceable rules on "gainful employment" to help curtail documented abuses by for-profit colleges.
The Obama administration will take steps to reduce the exclusion of scholars and others from the U.S. on the basis of their political views, according to a State Department letter made public by the AAUP, the ACLU, and PEN American Center.
On July 22, 2010, AAUP president Cary Nelson discussed BP, academic freedom, and the perils of corporate funding in "BP and Academic Freedom" with Inside Higher Ed. The story went viral and to Congress.
