#AAUP

[eretzyisrael]

by Jane Coleman

The mental gymnastics used to justify chucking the old policy were described by the AAUP Committee chair on Academic Freedom and Tenure, Rana Jaleel.

Under the new policy, “academic boycotts are not in themselves violations of academic freedom.” Done the right way, they can actually be a good thing, she explains:

The old policy had ‘been reportedly used to squelch academic freedom,’ said Rana Jaleel, chair of Committee A. Now, ‘what we’re saying is that we trust our members—our faculty on the ground who are doing the organizing work—to assess, weigh and decide whether or not they want to participate in academic boycotts,’ she said. The AAUP’s new statement still says boycotts shouldn’t ‘involve any political or religious litmus tests nor target individual scholars and teachers engaged in ordinary academic practices,’ such as conference presentations. It says such ‘boycotts should target only institutions of higher education that themselves violate academic freedom or the fundamental rights upon which academic freedom depends.’ ‘Freedom to produce and exchange knowledge depends upon the guarantee of other basic freedoms,’ the document says—including, among others, the freedom to live, the freedom from arbitrary arrest and the freedom of movement.

The AAUP “hasn’t gone as far as specifically endorsing an academic boycott of Israeli universities or the broader boycott, divestment and sanctions movement,” the article points out. But it might just be a matter of time.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Over 100 faculty members from Barnard and Columbia gathered on Low Steps at 2 p.m. Monday for a “Rally to Support our Students and Reclaim our University.”

aculty in the Barnard and Columbia chapter of the American Association of University Professors voiced support for students’ freedom of assembly and condemned the suspensions and arrests of “peaceful” protesters. At around 2:40 p.m., faculty members marched in a procession toward Barnard to deliver a letter to Barnard President Laura Rosenbury and Dean Leslie Grinage demanding that Barnard lift all student suspensions. As of Tuesday, Barnard has suspended at least 53 Barnard students.

“Barnard members of the AAUP are shocked and outraged at the illegitimate arrest, suspension, and eviction of over 50 Barnard College students who are engaging in a peaceful protest on the designated free speech zone of Butler lawn,” the letter states. “These actions have disrupted our ability to teach and our students’ ability to learn far more than any protest has.”

[commonsensecommentary]

“. . . The AAUP’s ‘Statement on Academic Boycotts’ should be seen as another benchmark in the progress of academic antisemitism. The AAUP appears to be ready to abandon more than a hundred years of advocating for principled neutrality among faculty to lurch into support for academic boycotts.”

(The outright fascism enveloping American higher education today is a national disgrace)

[dykelibraries]

childhood coping mechanism of imaging morally questionable characters be nice to me in particular Save Me

[porcupine-girl]

FUCK YES

I don’t think most non-academics realize just HOW big a scam academic publishing is. They get most of their labor for free, depending on the fact that scholars a) need to publish to get tenure/promotions and b) care about their field and want peer review to be functional. The fees they charge libraries for journal subscriptions have only gone UP since the days where at least they had to print actual copies of all the journals and mail them out. There’s no way maintaining their servers costs as much.

Their new scam is these “open access” journals, where they let readers access it for free but charge the authors for publishing them. Which is fine in the case of nonprofit journals like these scientists are setting up, since they do have to pay for the servers etc somehow. But as you can see from this, the major publishers like Elsevier, Sage, T & F, are just using it as an excuse to squeeze the very people whose work they NEED or they’d have nothing to publish.

The only way they’ll ever change is if scholars (not just scientists but the biggest journals tend to be the scientific ones) stop giving them the free labor. And yeah, it’ll have to be coordinated efforts like this one, because if individuals just refuse to edit/review/publish anywhere it will only hurt their own careers without making a real dent in the publishers.

More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the “greed” of publishing giant Elsevier.

The entire academic board of the journal Neuroimage, including professors from Oxford University, King’s College London and Cardiff University resigned after Elsevier refused to reduce publication charges.

Academics around the world have applauded what many hope is the start of a rebellion against the huge profit margins in academic publishing, which outstrip those made by Apple, Google and Amazon.

Neuroimage, the leading publication globally for brain-imaging research, is one of many journals that are now “open access” rather than sitting behind a subscription paywall. But its charges to authors reflect its prestige, and academics now pay over £2,700 for a research paper to be published. The former editors say this is “unethical” and bears no relation to the costs involved.

Professor Chris Chambers, head of brain stimulation at Cardiff University and one of the resigning team, said: “Elsevier preys on the academic community, claiming huge profits while adding little value to science.”

He has urged fellow scientists to turn their backs on the Elsevier journal and submit papers to a nonprofit open-access journal which the team is setting up instead.

He told the Observer: “All Elsevier cares about is money and this will cost them a lot of money. They just got too greedy. The academic community can withdraw our consent to be exploited at any time. That time is now.”

Elsevier, a Dutch company that claims to publish 25% of the world’s scientific papers, reported a 10% increase in its revenue to £2.9bn last year. But it’s the profit margins, nearing 40%, according to its 2019 accounts, which anger academics most. The big scientific publishers keep costs low because academics write up their research – typically funded by charities and the public purse – for free. They “peer review” each other’s work to verify it is worth publishing for free, and academic editors collate it for free or for a small stipend. Academics are then often charged thousands of pounds to have their work published in open-access journals, or universities will pay very high subscription charges.

[metamatar]

MIT PhD student in quantum computing, Prahlad Iyengar effectively expelled for writing an article to quote "vitiated the MIT brand by including an image of a vintage poster featuring the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) logo" and "makes several troubling statements that could be interpreted as a call for more violent or destructive forms of protest at MIT, including stating that it is time to ‘begin wreaking havoc’ and ‘exact[ing] a cost’ at MIT and highlighting self-immolation as a form of the ‘tactical pacifism’ that is the centerpiece of the article."

Academic freedom except for Palestine.

[victusinveritas]

A friend who is much better with words and not to my knowledge on Tumblr wrote this:

"Greatly appreciated this interview w Patrick Blanchfield on The Dig Radio (in comments) for locating the shooting of the UHC CEO w/in a broader field of late capitalist mass death, violence and human disposability.

While it’s clear Blanchfield and the host, Denvir, sympathize w Mangione and his reasons for killing a CEO, I liked that they also situated the act w/in a context of both mass shootings and state violence: what is remarkable is not that an American was shot - tens of thousands of Americans are gunned down by other Americans every year - but as Mark Ames points out, it was for once not the working class shooting each other, but a CEO who was targeted. In what often feels like a senseless culture of mass death - for once a murder wasn’t random.

That such culture is a part of our accepted daily life was expressed to me w great clarity as i negotiated w my university as an AAUP rep over pandemic safety protocols several years back. The admin said quite calmly and reasonably, you accept you might die in a car accident going to work, as tens of thousands of Americans do, or in a mass shooting, what makes dying of a virus in a classroom any different? That this passed for enlightened management rather than sociopathic indifference says all one needs to know about our historical moment

In that sense the killing of a CEO is in William James phrase, a “live option” in the way Medicare for All is not or mass politics is not. I am reminded of a thought experiment I often do as an ice breaker on the first day of class: imagine you could have 100 million dollars or a society w no money but your needs are met? Which would you choose? A significant number of students choose the money bc they say, a society w no money in which our needs could be met could not happen. But I am giving you the choice to make it happen, I say. But it can’t they respond. You also don’t have 100 million dollars, I counter. But we *could they say. But you won’t. But *someone will, they reply.

It’s hard to know if Mangione’s assassination of a CEO will help bring M4A. Ofc it is the role of politics to help produce out of our contradictory common sense a program, to cathect desire into a demand on the state or the boss. Obvs it’s what we have to do. Yet it also occurs to me a society that cannot imagine M4A is also a society that delights in gunning down CEO: the passage to the act both reveals poltical desire as much as it disavows its possibility. The figure of the social bandit is notoriously ambiguous, proto revolutionary but also existing in a social structure (colonial California, feudal Europe) in which a mass organized revolution is impossible

Well, it remains to be seen if Mangione is a 21st century Unabomber or maybe, a 21st C John Brown. Mangione faces the death penalty so perhaps the state is making our decision for us. I am sure Brown was far less popular than Mangione in his day, if also, just as feared by the ruling class, even if he hardly acted alone. But it was not up to Brown to make his death matter, it was up to the ppl."

[37q]

AAUP is now supporting academic boycott of israel following the ICJ decision

[airmanisr]

G-AAUP, Klemm L25-1A, Cranfield, 08-09-1973 by Gordon Riley

[abdullahdina-photoblog]

AAUP 🔻

[jcmarchi]

MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger honored with Quinn Prize

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/mit-philosopher-sally-haslanger-honored-with-quinn-prize/

MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger honored with Quinn Prize

MIT philosopher Sally Haslanger has been named the 2024 recipient of the prestigious Philip L. Quinn Prize from the American Philosophical Association (APA).

The award recognizes Haslanger’s lifelong contributions to philosophy and philosophers. Haslanger, the Ford Professor of Philosophy and Women’s and Gender Studies, says she is deeply honored by the recognition.

“So many philosophers I deeply respect have come before me as awardees, including Judith Jarvis Thomson, my former colleague and lifelong inspiration,” Haslanger says. “Judy and I both were deeply engaged in doing metaphysics with an eye toward the moral/political domain. Both of us were committed feminists in a time when it was not professionally easy. Both of us believed in the power of institutions, such as the APA and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), to sustain a flourishing intellectual community. Both of us have demanded that institutions we are part of abide by their values.”

Haslanger joined the MIT faculty in 1998.

Her research features explorations of the social construction of categories like gender, race, and the family; social explanation and social structure; and topics in feminist epistemology. She has also published in metaphysics and critical race theory. Broadly speaking, her work links issues of social justice with contemporary work in epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind.

Her book, “Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique” (Oxford University Press, 2012), was awarded the Joseph B. Gittler prize for outstanding work in the philosophy of social science. She also co-authored “What is Race: Four Philosophical Views” (Oxford University Press, 2019). Her current book, “Doing Justice to the Social” (under contract with Oxford University Press), develops an account of social practices and structures, emphasizing their materiality, the role of ideology, and potential grounds for critique. She continues to document and ameliorate the underrepresentation of women and other minorities in philosophy.

Haslanger, a former president of the Eastern Division of the APA, singles out the collaborative nature of the field while also celebrating her peers’ recognition, noting her work is “inspired, nourished, and scaffolded by others.”

“Judy was a notable inspiration (and a clear example of how hard such work can be), but there are so many others who have been on this journey with me and kept me going, including feminist colleagues across the country and abroad, graduate students, staff members, and allies from many different disciplines and professions,” Haslanger says.

Awarded annually since 2007, the Quinn Prize honors the memory of Philip L. Quinn, a noted philosopher from the University of Notre Dame who served as president of the APA Central Division for many years. The prize carries a $2,500 award and an engraved plaque.

Kieran Setiya, the Peter de Florez Professor of Philosophy and head of the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, says Haslanger has played a “transformative role in philosophy.”

“Sally’s influence on the field has been vast. Bridging a deep divide, she has brought critical social theory into conversation with analytic philosophy, arguing for an account of social structures and practices that does justice to their materiality,” Setiya says. “This work earned her a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, along with invitations to give lectures named after canonical philosophers past and present: Wittgenstein, Benjamin, Hempel, Kant, Spinoza, and others.”

Setiya noted Haslanger’s substantial contributions to the field, including her role in founding the Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute (PIKSI) in Boston, which for 10 years has brought diverse undergraduates to MIT to show them that graduate study in philosophy is a meaningful option for them and to mentor them as they apply to graduate school.

“As Sally’s colleague, I am in awe not just of her extraordinary philosophical and professional achievements, but of her integrity and the seemingly limitless energy she invests in her students, in the Philosophy Section, in MIT, in the profession, and in fighting for social justice in the world from which academia is inextricable,” Setiya adds.

[mariacallous]

Cornell University’s Jewish interim president is facing growing blowback from higher education groups over emails published by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last month, in which he raised objections to an upcoming class on Gaza.

Michael Kotlikoff’s remarks, which JTA reported on Nov. 11, were a violation of academic freedom, say representatives of the American Association of University Professors and the Middle East Studies Association. The episode is the latest instance of campus scrutiny over Israel shifting from protests to the classroom, more than a year removed from the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks that launched the war in Gaza.

In the email, Kotlikoff expressed his objections to a new course entitled “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance,” scheduled to be taught next term by Jewish professor Eric Cheyfitz, a pro-Palestinian activist who teaches in the school’s American Indian and Indigenous Studies program. Writing to a different Jewish professor, Kotlikoff said he was “extremely disappointed” with “the course’s apparent lack of openness and objectivity,” and promised to work with other departments to offer alternative courses on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

The email, which Kotlikoff says was never meant to be publicized, has prompted anger over the past week as the story gained traction in the Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper. 

“Kotlikoff’s remarks are an egregious threat to bedrock principles of academic freedom, as well as Cornell’s commitment to ‘any person, any study.’ They raise the specter of administrative interference in faculty control over curricular decisions and course instruction,” Risa Lieberwitz, the Jewish president of the university’s AAUP chapter, wrote in an open letter. 

Like other universities, the Ivy League school has faced numerous controversies over Israel politics and antisemitism since Oct. 7, 2023, with leaders and faculty frequently clashing over the limits of acceptable response. A student was arrested for threatening Jewish students; a professor was placed on leave for commenting that he felt “exhilarated” by the attacks; and administrators were recorded promising broader surveillance of pro-Palestinian faculty during a meeting with Hillel parents.

All this has led to deeper concerns that schools like Cornell could meaningfully curtail academic freedom in the name of protecting Jewish students, especially under a second Trump administration, as the president-elect has sworn to crack down on universities for “turning our students into communists and terrorists.”

While Kotlikoff vowed not to interfere with the class itself, his critics say his comments were a form of inappropriate scrutiny over faculty. Cheyfitz and his allies also said the professor has received hate mail as a result of his course being publicized.

Lieberwitz’s letter added that the president’s comments “suggest that, despite repeated disavowals, the leadership of the University not only intends to scrutinize the in-class activities of Cornell faculty but is actively doing so where it is deemed politically desirable.” 

Earlier this year, amid the Gaza war and calls for the boycott of Israel, AAUP dropped its longstanding opposition to academic boycotts. The Middle East Studies Association, an international group for academics focused on the region that itself endorsed a boycott of Israel in 2022 and has accused it of “genocidal violence,” also accused Kotlikoff of infringing on academic freedom.

“You are of course entitled to your opinion about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the proposed course,” the group’s president and academic freedom chair wrote in an open letter. But, they said, “your remarks may compromise the willingness of Cornell faculty to offer courses that deal with controversial issues,” as well as affect the judgment of curriculum-reviewing committees. 

Both organizations pressed Kotlikoff — who replaced Cornell’s previous Jewish president Martha Pollack earlier this year after Pollack stepped down, citing stress over campus tensions around Israel and Gaza — to apologize to Cheyfitz.

Meanwhile, the Jewish professor who prompted the row by sharing Kotlikoff’s email with JTA says he has no regrets.

“If a course such as the one on Gaza being offered by Professor Cheyfitz cannot withstand criticism, perhaps it’s its underlying premise, not the criticism, that should be scrutinized,” Menachem Rosensaft, an adjunct professor in the law school who first raised his concerns about the class with the school president, wrote to JTA on Thursday.

In Rosensaft’s view, his objections to the course have nothing to do with academic freedom. Instead, he believes the Gaza course — which promises to frame the conflict through a settler-colonial lens, one that Israel’s defenders insist does not apply to the region’s history — is analogous to classes promoting slavery, misogyny, or other values that would not be tolerated at a modern university. He wrote that the course would promote a narrative that “constitutes antisemitism on steroids.”

Speaking to Inside Higher Ed, Kotlikoff defended his right to share his personal opinions on a course. “I would not publicly comment on the decision of a curriculum committee or a colleague’s choice of course material,” he said, while adding, “if there are antisemitic, racist, other incidents that are directly related to Cornell, I certainly reserve the right to comment on those and reassure the community around those issues.”

Cheyfitz, for his part, still plans to teach the course, and says criticisms of it were based only on a brief course description. Citing a just-released report from Amnesty International, the human rights NGO, accusing Israel of genocide — a charge that Israel and its defenders reject as spurious — he told JTA that his critics would be judged harshly: “History will mark scholars like Rosensaft for what they are: apologists for genocide,” he said.

He added to Inside Higher Ed, “The backlash hasn’t been horrible.” 

[sossupummit]

By Palestine Chronicle Staff   AAUP sent the Pennsylvania liberal arts college a letter demanding an answer in the absence of any public clarification from the academic institution regarding the decision to fire Finkelstein. The [...] The post Firing of a Jewish Anti-Zionist Professor – AAUP Takes a Fight with US College appeared first on Palestine Chronicle.

[40sandfabulousaf]

大家好! ML had a craving for ban mian (board noodles) so she, SC, MI and I went back to the stall selling it. I ordered fish soup you mian (thin board noodles); what else can I say but YUM? Thick, tender fish slices, perfectly poached egg, sweet and crunchy wong bak (Napa cabbage) and highly slurpable noodles, what's not to like? I was so full, I only wanted veggies for dinner. All this goodness for $5.50. Our hawkers are amazing, especially during this inflationary period. This meal was so delicious that I sent the pic to CY (she introduced it to me) and she straight up went there for dinner.

Ahh good ol' yong tau foo, 1 of my main staples when I crave lots of vegetables. ML was on leave, so SC, MI and I headed to the stall which sells standard yong tau foo. This time, I chose green beans wrapped in tau kee (tofu skin), brinjal, bittergourd, carrot, golden mushrooms, Chinese mushroom, broccoli, cuttlefish and an egg. The green beans wrapped in tau kee were new and they were delicious! I also paired this with rice instead of noodles. Oh yes, in previous posts, I forgot to mention that some people like to dip their veggies and protein in chilli or sweet sauce. I prefer to eat mine plain so as to taste them better.

JK, CY, SC, ML and I were attending a talk. We ate lunch at a very famous and popular hawker centre near the event venue, which is always crowded during lunch break. ML, JK, CY and I made a beeline for the stall selling Japanese rice and noodle bowls. Customers can choose from salmon, unagi, chicken and beef for our protein, rice or soba and soya sauce, black pepper or mentaiko sauce. I chose salmon, soba and black pepper sauce. This stall does salmon SO well. The fish was moist and tender and that onsen egg was perfect. Everything, from the soba, seaweed, radish, edamame, kimchi and furikake blended together nicely to create an explosion of flavours. It was delicious!

So we had a tea break in between the 4-hour talk. There was a buffet but I wasn't keen on the fried bee hoon (thin rice vermicelli), chicken wings and dessert. I was also still full from lunch, so I ate a mini Hawaiian pizza about half the size of my palm, ngoh hiang (meat roll with chopped water chestnuts), breaded scallop and coffee. Didn't go back for seconds because I felt stuffed at this point. The talk ended 2 hours later and when I got home at close to 7pm, I was still not hungry. Dinner was light - congee, vegetables and tau kwa (firm tofu) - and after watching some videos, it was time for bed.

I haven't stepped into a fastfood chain for over 13 months now but it isn't to say I don't eat pizza or fried chicken at all. Occasionally I do, but that doesn't trigger binge like what some people think. Our tastebuds adapt to what we regularly consume over time; nowadays, I find moderately healthy meals more delicious and they're better for my body. I feel less lethargic after eating balanced meals of fresh vegetables, high quality protein and noodles or rice. And because I feel better, my mental and emotional wellbeing is just fine. What's not to like about this lifestyle? 下次见！