Why McAdams v. Marquette Is a Victory for Academic Freedom and Shared Governance
BY JOHN K. WILSON The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 4-2 ruling on Friday in favor of John McAdams against Marquette University has received an enormous amount of media coverage, and it deserves it. This is...
View ArticleMy Letter to the Chicago Tribune on Higher Ed
BY JOHN K. WILSON I have a letter to the editor in tomorrow’s Chicago Tribune, in response to a July 11 editorial by the Tribune which glorified the University of Illinois while urging lawmakers to...
View ArticleAlan Dershowitz, Civility, and Censorship
BY JOHN K. WILSON Today’s CBS Sunday Morning featured a segment bemoaning the loss of civility, which is apparently the great crisis of our times. It included lawyer (and law professor) Alan Dershowitz...
View ArticleSneering Sessions Smears Sensitivity
BY JOHN K. WILSON In a speech yesterday at a Turning Point USA conference, Attorney General Jeff Sessions declared: “We are reaching a pivotal and historic moment. After more than two centuries of...
View ArticleIn Defense of Marc Short
BY JOHN K. WILSON I’m disturbed by many of the arguments against the decision by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center to hire as a senior fellow Marc Short, the former White House director of...
View ArticleDixie State University Fails Last Chance at Academic Freedom
BY JOHN K. WILSON Dixie State University (DSU) in Utah, after trying and failing to fire music professor Ken Peterson for the crime of gossip, is now declaring that Peterson, to keep his job, must sign...
View ArticleGovernment Overreach and the NAS Conference
This past weekend, I was invited by the National Association of Scholars to speak on a panel at their conference at Grove City College, “Capitol Ideas: Government Overreach and Higher Education.” As a...
View ArticleHow Colleges Suppress Freedom of the Press: Repression at Nassau Community...
BY JOHN K. WILSON Donald Trump has infamously called the media who dare to tell the truth about him “the enemy of the people” and dreamed of repressive measures to silence the press. But so far he’s...
View ArticleThe NAS Attack on Books
BY JOHN K. WILSON The National Association of Scholars today issued its 11th annual “Beach Books” report critiquing common reading programs. The NAS press release is shockingly titled, “Study Finds...
View Article“Sokal Squared” and Academic Freedom
BY JOHN K. WILSON Many people on AcademeBlog, including Hank Reichman, have made interesting comments on the so-called “Sokal squared” hoax. Earlier this month, I was a discussant at a session focusing...
View ArticleRemembering Academic Freedom During World War I
BY JOHN K. WILSON Today is Remembrance Day, and the centennial of the end of World War I. It’s also a time to reflect on how academic freedom in America was silenced by war fever, and how the AAUP was...
View ArticleA Victory for Graduate Student Rights at Columbia
BY JOHN K. WILSON In a major victory for graduate student employees, Columbia University has agreed to a framework to recognize the Graduate Workers of Columbia-UAW (GWC-UAW) and the Columbia...
View ArticleFreedom of the Press Prevails at Nassau Community College
BY JOHN K. WILSON Last week, the Nassau Community College Board of Trustees unanimously approved a new News Media Relations policy that is a tremendous victory for freedom of the press, reflecting the...
View ArticleIn Defense of Satoshi Kanazawa’s Academic Freedom
BY JOHN K. WILSON Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at the London School of Economics, was having a quiet sabbatical, spending it as a visiting scholar at Northwestern University, until someone looked...
View ArticleThe Myth of the Campus Coddle Crisis: The Coddling of the American Mind
BY JOHN K. WILSON Jonathan Haidt, a professor of psychology at New York University, and Greg Lukianoff, president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), have written a new...
View ArticleIn Defense of Peter Boghossian
BY JOHN K. WILSON Peter Boghossian, an assistant professor of philosophy at Portland State University, and the co-author of the infamous recent “Sokal Squared” hoax against academic journals, was...
View ArticleBook Banning at Franciscan
BY JOHN K. WILSON The president of Franciscan University of Steubenville has openly announced that a book will be banned from being taught at the university, and all books at the university will be...
View ArticleTurkey’s Ongoing Attack on Academic Freedom
BY JOHN K. WILSON Earlier today, a Turkish court sentenced an academic, Yonca Demir from Bilgi University, to three years in prison for the crime of signing a peace petition critical of the government....
View ArticleA Terrible Settlement by UIC for $694,000
BY JOHN K. WILSON It is shocking that the University of Illinois at Chicago would waste $694,000 in taxpayer funds to pay off a disgraced Chicago State administrator over a frivolous lawsuit. Angela...
View ArticleA Terrible Idea Called The Campus Intellectual Diversity Act
BY JOHN K. WILSON Stanley Kurtz is at it again: He has another bad idea for unnecessary and counterproductive legislation. In the past, he’s sought to impose mandatory penalties on disruptive...
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