Jan 25, 2009

Signs of the Times

by Cliopatria

In Peter Schmidt,"For Academic-Freedom, Against Speech Codes," CHE, 23 January, AAUP President Cary Nelson declares that he and his organization will work with others to overturn campus speech codes. He sees"speech codes as such an affront that offering to join others in fighting them was an easy call. ‘One of the reasons you collaborate is to win,' he said. ‘I want to knock out speech codes.'" Welcome to the party, Cary! Speech codes are unconstitutional in our public institutions and an offense against freedom of speech in all of them.

In Eleni Snider,"Graduate assistantships cut at Miami," JournalNews, 23 January, announces that redistribution of graduate assistantships at Ohio's Miami University has put its history doctoral program in limbo. As I have argued, with eight history doctoral programs in its public institutions, Ohio simply has too many, but I doubt that Miami's is the weakest of them. Thanks to David Fahey for the tip.