Academic Freedom

Not About BDS

24.02.2013

There is something particularly poisonous about the kind of political opportunism on display at Brooklyn College right now. Unfortunately, it’s all déjà vu for me and my former colleagues in the political science department. The Brooklyn College chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) recently organized a panel discussion on the Boycott, Divestment, and [...]

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Academic Freedom & Palestine: A Personal Account

29.11.2011

Good research is often controversial. In the social sciences, the exchange of new ideas, new interpretations of history, and the excavation of counter-hegemonic or what Michel Foucault would call “subjugated” knowledge unsettles and upsets received wisdom. For those of us fortunate enough to study a region as eternally fascinating and intellectually demanding as the Middle [...]

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Liza Featherstone: Caught in the Web

09.07.2011

While labor lags behind other social movements in Internet organizing, some inspiring models are emerging. At the beginning of the year, Kristofer Petersen-Overton—an adjunct—was fired from the City University of New York’s Brooklyn College, just after a right-wing Zionist politician criticized his course on the Middle East for being too sympathetic to Palestinians. In an [...]

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Stephen Leberstein: Open Season on Academics

09.07.2011

The year began with threats of violence against Frances Fox Piven, distinguished professor of sociology and political science at the Graduate Center, following Glenn Beck’s repeated denunciations of Piven on his Fox network show and the posting of her home address on his blog. At the same time, Kristofer Petersen-Overton, a PhD student in political [...]

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Alan Levine: Jews Are Dishonored by a Blind Defense of Israel

20.05.2011

Now that the City University of New York board of trustees has reversed course and approved an honorary degree for Tony Kushner, it is time for the Jewish establishment to reflect upon its failure to speak out. Jewish history tells us that silence is complicity. While individual Jews and progressive Jewish organizations, such as Jews [...]

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Tony Kushner and the Corporatisation of CUNY

10.05.2011

The taboo surrounding critical discussion of Israel in the United States never ceases to amaze me. But when the Board of Trustees of the City University of New York (CUNY) recently decided not to grant an honorary degree to Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright Tony Kushner because of his views on Israel, it felt personal. Three months [...]

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Video: Academic Freedom & Palestine

21.04.2011

April 8th, 2011 @ the Brecht Forum.

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The Ongoing Attack on Academic Freedom: Which Way Forward?

21.04.2011

Tuesday, May 10, 2011, 6.30 PM Light Refreshments 5:30-6 PSC-CUNY Union Hall 61 Broadway, 16th floor (photo ID required) Keynote speaker: Frances Fox Piven : Professor of Political Science and Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center, author of Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America Additional speakers: Anita Levy , Associate Secretary, Academic Freedom Dept., AAUP on [...]

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Academic Freedom & Palestine

04.04.2011

Friday April 8th, 2011 @ 7:30 PM The Brecht Forum 451 West Street (that’s the West Side Highway) between Bank & Bethune Streets NYC 10014 (212) 242-4201 Join us for a conversation on the fightback against academic repression and its connection to Palestine, Islamophobia and academic freedom on US campuses. The story this past semester [...]

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Panel Discussion: Academic Freedom and the New McCarthyism

05.03.2011

March 14, 2011 @ 6.30 PM CUNY Graduate Center, rm 201 (basement level) 365 Fifth Avenue B/D/F/M/N/Q/R to 34th St-Herald Square Our university is once again under attack. Such vitriolic opponents of academic freedom as Fox News pundit Glenn Beck and NY Assemblyman Dov Hikind have recently targeted City University of New York faculty members [...]

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