The AAUP
June 19, 2018
My name is Stephen Ramsay, and I’m here representing the AAUP chapter at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (which is an advocacy chapter). This year has been a very difficult one for my institution. The report issued by the investigating team indicates a variety of failures on the part of the University of Nebraska administration, including disregard for the principles of academic freedom and faculty governance. Courtney Lawton, the main subject of the report, was removed from teaching without the required hearings for either a faculty member or a student, without the input of the faculty charged with evaluating her fitness as a teacher, and according to a varied and changing set of rationales manifestly unrelated to her abilities as an instructor. The overall conclusion of the report is disquieting indeed: “There is little doubt that political pressure played a significant role in the Lawton case; in one sense, it is at the very heart of it.”
Sadly, we are compelled to agree with this assessment, since we consider the principles set forth in the Association’s Statement of Principles [on Academic Freedom and Tenure] to have been openly violated. We therefore feel obliged to vote in favor of censuring the University of Nebraska-Lincoln administration, and we encourage the members here gathered to do the same. We would like to thank the three members of the investigating team—Nicole Monnier, Shannon Freire, and Susan Jarosi—for their time, effort, and careful work, and also Joerg Tiede, Associate Secretary in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure, and Governance, whose support was invaluable throughout this last difficult year.
Read the full post here.