Category: Academic Freedom
Chinese Professor Suspended After Speaking Out About President Jinping
Following the publication of his more recent Imminent Fears piece, Xu was allegedly ordered by university officials to stop “all teaching and research” and take a pay cut. A university “work team” would also be investigating him and the essays he has been writing.
The Past & Future of Free Collecting with Liana Zhou, Kinsey Institute
Liana Zhou, Director of the Library and Special Collections of the Kinsey Institute, shares her story and discusses the past, present, and future of the Kinsey Institute, sexuality, archiving, and intellectual freedom.
Balancing Perceptions of Historical Truth in Schools
Living in a post-fact or “fake news” society poses significant challenges to educators, particularly when it comes to history learning standards. Do you know who creates standards in your state? Debates over historical truths, biased distortions, and unpatriotic historical interpretations open the door for political influence in learning standards, directly impacting the historical and civic educations of today’s students.
Banned Book ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is America’s ‘Best-Loved’ Novel
Part of the reason that the novel is so well loved, I think, is because it challenged so many of us to think about difficult issues. Whether we continue to teach Mockingbird or choose to move on to another, more modern book, one important lesson from Mockingbird will live on – we will continue to read, and love, our banned books.
Dispatches from the Houghton Library, Part Two: Who’s In and Who’s Out?
Are admissions policies at the world’s most exclusive colleges fair? How do they even determine what “fair” is? And does this presence or absence of fairness affect our intellectual freedom?
Review of “Libraries, Leadership, and Scholarly Communication” and “Scholarly Communication: What Everyone Needs to Know”
ALA Editions published a book of essays in 2016 by Rick Anderson called Libraries, Leadership, and Scholarly Communication. The author also has a new book out called Scholarly Communication: What Everyone Needs to Know. I’ve worked with Rick Anderson for nearly a decade now and have read many of his scholarly communication-related articles. I wanted to take the chance to read other essays that I may have missed, especially those about libraries and leadership in general.
Intellectual Freedom Inventory: Back to School Edition
It’s almost that time again, the most wonderful time of the year! Back to school!
The Best Educating Requires Academic Freedom
Weakening the protections of academic freedom will make it harder for all educators to do their jobs effectively and creatively. I think for most of us, if we think back we will realize the teachers we remember most, and that we learned the most from, are the ones who challenged the way we think and pushed us beyond our comfort zones. Educators at all levels need to continue to have the freedom to do this.
Dispatches from the Houghton Library, Part One
As an academic librarian with a deep interest in historical and contemporary book censorship, I can’t imagine a better way to spend my vacation than with the very books deemed too dangerous to read. This post is my first dispatch as a visiting fellow in publishing history at the Houghton Library, Harvard’s main repository of rare books and manuscripts.
Gender bias lesson leads to policy changes–and questions for school librarians
No policy can be written to prevent all challenges and all selection mistakes. But we can improve how we talk to each other and how we talk about our policies. Included here are three steps school librarians can take to lay the groundwork for improved conversations between parents, teachers, and administrators.