This article considers whether a threat is posed to academic independence in corporate universities by the United States Studies Centre (USSC) at the University of Sydney. The USSC rapidly worked its way into Australia's oldest university, building a unique governance structure in which a private business lobby vets senior academics and controls…

Accreditation is being transformed from a valued private-sector process--over which the federal government historically has exercised limited control--to a process that is subject to more and more federal involvement. The implications of this shift, profound for faculty members, can include the erosion of academic freedom and the loss of…

Hardly a week passes without yet another highly visible court case involving the rights and freedoms of secondary school students. The subject matter of these lawsuits is as varied as the activities of the students who have gone to court to vindicate their legal interests. The outcome of such cases also runs the gamut; some student plaintiffs (and…

Arizona's variation on government vouchers for religious schools and California's prohibition on the sale of violent video games to minors present the top two cases with implications for education in the U.S. Supreme Court term that formally begins Oct. 4. New Justice Elena Kagan brings to the court extensive education policy experience as a…

Steven Kurtz, a professor of visual studies at the State University of New York, has been working with various bacteria as part of his counterculture exhibit artworks for nearly 20 years. Four years ago, federal agents raided his home in a bioterrorism investigation. The federal agents had been called to the house by local police officers…

A tipping point with the "Chronicle of Higher Education" and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has been reached. A tipping point, by definition, is the effect of many events, often small and seemingly insignificant. At the "Chronicle," the tipping point finally came on September 21, 2007, when the journal published a short…

Most professors will never experience a serious threat to their independence or free expression. They may even resent the expectation that they join or support organizations that defend such freedoms when the risks seem so remote to their own careers and fields. Yet for the small fraction of faculty members who do encounter such pressures,…

This report seeks to confront the contemporary political challenge to the academic community by exploring how free universities contribute to the common good even as they create political tensions between themselves and society that require the protection of academic freedom. At the same time, the report suggests ways that protection may be…

As the charter movement matures and plays a growing role in education reform, educators need to know about the organizational dynamics autonomy creates, the people who end up working in autonomous schools, and the academic programs they choose to employ. That information is critical to helping the charter school sector grow and mature effectively,…

Considering social justice to be founded on human rights, which, in turn, are grounded in freedom of thought, expression, and assembly, this essay reviews efforts by art educators to engage with public space as a form of social justice pedagogy. Public space, whether actual or virtual, is understood to be inherently devoted to contestation in the…

In this essay, Peter Trifonas tries to show that there is no overcoming of the techno-philosophical grounding of intellectual freedom and academic responsibility or research action within the speculum of an all-seeing, all-knowing university. Instead, he argues that through Derrida's notion of an open "community of the question," deconstruction…

The central message of this report is that a new generation of veterans is returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan without sufficient connections to communities, is enthusiastic to serve again, and points the way forward for how our nation can better integrate them into civilian life. Although the 1.8 million veterans are from every corner of our…

Children today live in a multicultural society. Its ethnic, religious and cultural diversity is reflected in school communities. In Australia, education is provided largely within the secular public systems of each state and territory. In addition, there is a significant denominational, primarily Catholic, school sector. In New Zealand, the state…

This paper is a preliminary attempt to establish a working definition of academic freedom for the European Union states. The paper details why such a definition is required for the European Union and then examines some of the difficulties of defining academic freedom. By drawing upon the experience of the legal difficulties beset by the concept in…

"We need a clear citizens' vision of the way the Net ought to grow, a firm idea of the kind of media environment we would like to see in the future. If we do not develop such a vision for ourselves, the future will be shaped for us by large commercial and political powerholders" (Rheingold, 2000, p. 6). If the online environment is not…