Universities

Department of History, University of Michigan, Delays Grade Posting until May 12th in Support of Striking Grads

Monday, April 24, 2023 To the University President, Provost, and Administration: We are deeply troubled by reports that the administration intends to punish faculty, staff, and department chairs who refuse to assign grades for work that they have not personally assessed. We find these actions to be an infringement on faculty autonomy, and we reject […]

Anti-intellectualism

KKK without the Robes: DeSantis has gutted Florida Education, Cancelled Black History and Criminalized LGBTQ+ People

Dan Dinello

Informed Comment is introducing guest Feature posts occasionally, as Editor-in-Chief Juan Cole steps back from his unprecedented and grueling routine of writing a blog essay every day for nearly 21 years. Never fear, he will still write features several times a week. But some submissions from IC stalwarts deserve to be featured, and Dan Dinello’s […]

African-Americans

Is the new AP African American Studies course Dangerous? Students don’t think so

Oregon Capital Chronicle

Naseem Rakha Maurice Cowley is teaching college-level African American Studies at McDaniel High School. ( Oregon Capital Chronicle ) – Three days after the nation honored Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership in the Civil Rights Movement, a spokeswoman for the Florida Department of Education announced that no Florida public high school would be […]

censorship

Keeping Resistance Alive during McCarthyism: Chandler Davis and Academic Freedom at the University of Michigan

Alan M. Wald

Alan Wald, Steve Batterson and Peggie Hollingsworth | University of Michigan | – Making Michigan lecture series – Keeping Resistance Alive “In 1954, Chandler Davis was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. His fellows on the stand were his colleagues Mark Nickerson and Clement L. Markert, and his student friends Edward […]

Afghanistan

Muslim Authorities Condemn Taliban Ban on Women in Universities, as NGOs Close in Protest

Michael Jansen

By Michael Jansen | – ( The Irish Times ) – Four global aid agencies have suspended services in Afghanistan in response to a Taliban ban on women working at non-governmental organisations (NGOs). In a joint statement, Care, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee said: “We cannot effectively reach […]

Climate Crisis

The Fossil Free Research Movement is taking Universities by Storm

Waging Nonviolence

By Nick Engelfried | – ( Waging Nonviolence ) – When over 40 Cambridge students and academics occupied the elite U.K. university’s BP Institute earlier this year, they were escalating one of the newest, fastest-growing campaigns focused on dissociating higher education institutions from fossil fuels. For just over an hour, activists from the grassroots initiative […]

Feminism

Activist Student Movements have Shaped Iran at Every Turn: The Islamic Republic won’t be the Same

Fariba Amini

Newark, Del. (Special to Informed Comment) – Iran’s student movement has never gone away. On 16th of Azar/ December 7, 1953, three students, Ghandchi, Bozorgnia and Shariat Razavi were killed at Tehran University while the then VP Richard Nixon visited Iran, following the Coup in August of that year. Ever since, this date has been […]

Education

What Does It Mean that Women Now Dominate Higher Education?

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – In the last week of her life, my mother extracted a promise from me. “Make sure,” she said, “that Orion goes to college.” I swore that I would, although I wasn’t at all sure how I’d make it happen. Even in the year 2000, average tuitions were almost 10 times what […]

Debt

Debt and Disillusionment: Neoliberalism’s Unfair burden on this Generation of College Students

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – For the last decade and a half, I’ve been teaching ethics to undergraduates. Now — admittedly, a little late to the party — I’ve started seriously questioning my own ethics. I’ve begun to wonder just what it means to be a participant, however minor, in the pyramid scheme that higher education […]