Many AAU university leaders with dubious histories of support for academic freedom are now trying to get in on this bandwagon – UO President Michael Schill comes to mind. Of course I support their First Amendment right to claim whatever BS they think will help promote their careers.
But Holden Horp has actually earned his chops, after quitting as UNC chancellor over their fake classes for athletes scam. From the Chronicle:
Three professors of political science at Florida were blocked from serving as expert witnesses in a lawsuit to combat a restrictive anti-voting law in the state. The move is not just an unacceptable assault on academic freedom; it is also an attempt to redefine professors as mandated proponents of the political views of their state governments. It is outrageous for the president and provost of the University of Florida to permit this incursion on the autonomy of the university and its faculty members. W. Kent Fuchs and Joseph Glover need to put their jobs on the line immediately. Furthermore, the reasoning they’ve put forward to defend this indefensible decision — which requires a foray into administrative policy to understand — is deeply flawed.
One of the professors, Michael McDonald, tweeted a screenshot of an email — worthy of the @ass_deans Twitter feed — that he got from an administrator who is responsible for upholding the conflicts-of-interest policy at the university …
Of course he’s now got a sweet gig at the AAAS, pulling down what I’ll guess is $600K with a sinecure as “editor of the Science family of journals” – but then how many academics have similar non-profit deals, and never do a thing afterwards?
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