SUPPORTING FREE SCIENCE
//By College Fix Staff
The American Association of University Professors’ Journal of Academic Freedom is calling for papers that “critically examine attempts at thought control by the Right, the whitewashing of historical narratives, and specific assaults on academic freedom that cut across the K–12 and higher education sectors.”
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by Pano Kanelos
I left my post as president of St. John’s College in Annapolis to build a university in Austin dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth.
//Astronomer retracts paper on use of data to make hiring decisions because it could harm ‘women and minorities’
University of Texas at Austin astronomer John Kormendy retracted a paper and paused a book about the use of hard data in the hiring and funding of professors after criticism that it harmed women and racial minorities.
Continue reading the article @The College Fix here
The text of his apology is here.
The full paper has been archived here.
//With the immanent publication of our book “Diversity, Inclusion, Equity & the Threat to Academic Freedom” and the continuing threats to academic freedom, I have decided to start adding news to the website on a regular basis.
I will be restarting the newsletter which will be automatically generated at the start of the month and sent to you, if you subscribe, otherwise subscribe –> here.
The first automated newsletter will contain all articles hitherto. Thereafter you will only receive any new news.
Thanks for your interest!
//My name is Jo Phoenix. I am Professor of Criminology at the Open University.
I am bringing an employment tribunal claim to hold the OU to account for the public campaign of harassment that has made my working life unbearable, and I really need your support.
My hope is that this case will force universities to protect female academics from the vicious bullying perpetrated by those who disagree with our beliefs on sex and gender; bullying that is designed to silence us and our research.
Continue reading -> here
//A professor accused of transphobia for her views on gender identity is quitting her post at the University of Sussex.
Philosophy professor Kathleen Stock, who rejects the claim, said she would be leaving after “a horrible time” and “difficult few years”.
Earlier this month an anonymous group launched a campaign to get her sacked.
Continue reading here at the BBC
//by Richard Vedder
Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University.
When I am asked “what is the single biggest problem with higher education in America?” some expect me to talk about the high costs, excessive tuition fees, abysmal inefficiencies, learning deficiencies, or poor vocational outcomes characterizing America’s colleges and universities today. But there is a more fundamental problem: increasingly, participants in the learning experience at American universities are afraid to say what they believe. There is growing self-censorship arising from fears that there can be very severe negative consequences from saying something that is not acceptable to the campus community.
//A new journal article finds that the introduction of so-called gender mainstreaming at Swedish universities led to multiple violations of academic freedom. In addition, it may have increased an already existing bias against men’s research merits when hiring for the rank of professor, the study concludes.
//Press release, 3 February 2021
70 academics from German-speaking countries and various academic disciplines have joined forces in the Network for Academic Freedom. They are making their appeal for academic freedom public for the first time today.
They are concerned about the increasing narrowing of questions, topics and arguments in academic research. In many places, a climate has developed at universities in which dissenting positions and opinions are marginalised and morally sanctioned. These restrictions on academic freedom often follow an ideological or political agenda. They hinder a rational and open-ended search for knowledge, which is at the core of the freedom of science in the tradition of the Enlightenment. Cancel Culture and Political Correctness have caused the free and controversial debate even of outsider positions to disappear in many places at universities.
With their appeal and the founding of the network, the academics want to defend and strengthen the prerequisites of free research and teaching. They advocate a culture of debate characterised by factual arguments and mutual respect. Intellectual freedom, curiosity and intellectual diversity are indispensable for this.
//I’m an attorney representing a professor at the University of Central Florida who is being subjected by the university to what can only be called an inquisition after expressing opinions on Twitter that led to widespread calls for his firing.
Read more here.
