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Posts published by “UO Matters”

New Duck football coach opens up three scholarship slots for his new recruits

That would be the cynical take. Kenny Jacoby has the scoop in the Daily Emerald here: Three Oregon football players who had off-the-field issues have been dismissed from the team, UO athletics spokesman Craig Pintens confirmed Monday afternoon. No news yet on the General Counsel’s investigation of the Duck Athletic Department’s threats to…

Lawyers Guns and Money takes on Volokh for his WaPo opinion

A while back I asked commenters for links to legal analyses defending the administration’s decision to discipline Prof. Shurtz. The popular Lawyers, Guns and Money blog has one of sorts, with many comments: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2016/12/bad-applications-of-anti-harassment-law-should-not-be-used-to-justify-mostly-eliminating-anti-harassment-laws. The beginning: I agree with the bottom line of Eugene Volokh’s analysis here: Shurtz’s foolish decision to wear…

President Schill on controversial Halloween costume & free speech

Dear Colleagues,  Over the past couple of months, the University of Oregon’s handling of events associated with Professor Nancy Shurtz’s decision to wear a controversial Halloween costume has garnered significant media attention, both locally and nationally. A number of editorials, letters to the editor, and blog posts have engaged in…

University Board sends helpful meeting announcement with detailed agenda info

That would be the Oregon State University Board, which has some significant business on their agenda, as usual: Public Meetings Notice January 9, 2017 The Oregon State University Board of Trustees will meet on Friday, January 20, to discuss Oregon State’s efforts to advance equity, inclusion, and social justice and…

Men get credit where women do not

A (sole-authored) paper presented at the American Economic Association annual meeting this weekend. Summary from InsideHigherEd: To determine the impact of co-authorship, Sarsons tracked all of economics professors who came up for tenure between 1985 and 2014 at 30 top universities, all places that stress tenure candidates’ research credentials. She…

UO Alert! Provost yields to incessant tweets and ice, cancels classes

Wow, and I thought this blog gets some pointed comments. I don’t see anything that would be illegal under the protection of the First Amendment, but knowing how our administration feels about free speech I’m just reposting a few of the more civil ones: Perhaps Coltrane was so reluctant to cancel classes because…

Despite UO efforts to provide designated safe spaces for students, “some areas remain challenging.”

Not sure how this will interact with the administration’s plan for free speech zones: I’m hoping that last link takes our students to Yvon Chouinard’s classic work on how to reach new heights despite a hostile environment, but probably not.

Can the administration fire Shurtz? Will they?

Not without a formal judgement by her peers following established procedures. In fact the administration can’t even punish her without that. Academic freedom is still pretty strong at UO. See the “final investigative report” from UO’s employment law specialists Edwin A. Harnden & Shayda Z. Le of Barran Liebman, LLP, and the letter from…

Another law school Dean castigates UO over First Amendment fail

In November Vikram Amar,  Dean of the University of Illinois law school reviewed the legal issues with UO law dean Michael Mofffitt’s decision to suspend Professor Shurtz from teaching on the well-read law blog Above the Law: “On Academic Freedom, Administrative Fairness, And Blackface“. On November 14th UO law professor Ofer…