Not All Money is Good Money
The following is the text of an open letter to the University of Illinois Board of Trustees from Safiya Umoja Noble, Assistant Professor, UCLA, and former faculty member, student, and … Continue reading
Hiltzik on Civility
Michael Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times is one of my favorite newspaper columnists. This week he ran an excellent piece on what I’ve started calling the emerging “civility doctrine” … Continue reading
Board of Trustees Officially Votes Against Salaita, and Salaita Responds
The University of Illinois Board of Trustees just concluded a meeting at which they formally voted to reject the appointment of Steven Salaita. However, the vote was not unanimous. Trustee … Continue reading
An Open Letter Supporting Salaita’s Dismissal, and a Critique
This morning, Sept. 11, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees will meet in Urbana, and the trustees show no signs of backing down from their support for the firing … Continue reading
And Now There’s a Blacklist?
Two days ago I posted a piece on this blog that asked, “Is ‘Incivility’ the New Communism?” In that post I suggested that recent attempts to enforce standards of “civility” … Continue reading
You Can’t Get Off the Ballot in Kansas
Chad Taylor, the Democratic candidate for the Senate seat in Kansas currently held by the long-serving but vulnerable Republican Senator Pat Roberts, recently announced that he was withdrawing from the … Continue reading
John Oliver Compares Student Debt to an STD
On this past Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight” show, John Oliver devoted about two thirds of the show to an extended riff on the student-debt issue. At one point, he compared … Continue reading
America Re-Imagined, in Retrospect: Fifty Notable American Novels about the “West”: 1-2
Berger, Thomas. Little Big Man. New York: Dial, 1964. Thomas Berger had such a long and productive career that it is a mystery why he is not routinely included … Continue reading
Statement by Steven Salaita
Steven Salaita issued the following statement today in a press conference near the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. For more about his case, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights. My name … Continue reading
More “Innovation” from Mitch Daniels
Over the last several weeks, Purdue University has announced that its School of Communications and its College of Technology have received $500,000 grants from President Mitch Daniels for creating, respectively, … Continue reading
