Tag Archives: Michigan

April 15, 2012, 9:40 am

The Demeaning of Academic Freedom in Michigan

When the Michigan legislature returns from recess next week, and votes funds for higher education (far more meager than they used to be, but never mind), it will vote on Section 273a, passed by the House Appropriations Subcommittee, which, according to the Lansing State Journal, reads:

It is the intent of the legislature that a public university that receives funds in section 236 shall not collaborate in any manner with a nonprofit worker center whose documented activities include coercion through protest, demonstration, or organization against a Michigan business.

If this seems a rather precisely targeted prohibition, it is. The Lansing State Journal explains:

During the 2010-11 academic year, a social work graduate student from the University of Michigan who was part of a program to “train committed specialists in community-based work” did a field placement with a Detroit…

March 12, 2011, 8:31 am

Committee on the Radicalization of Billionaires

By Laurie Essig

Ah, hypocrisy. First there is the ridiculous and McCarthy-like Congressional Committee started by New York Republican Congressman Peter King. King, of course, was a huge supporter of the Irish Republican Army, but that was different, wasn’t it? Becuase the IRA was actually linked to attacks on civilians whereas the American Muslim community is not actively trying to attack civilians. Watching Jon Stewart lampoon King was funny, but depressing.

Equally depressing is the ridiculous brouhaha at NPR, caused by that enfant terrible of right-wing “journalism,” James O’Keefe. Yes, the same O’Keefe who proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that ACORN was not a community-based social-justice organization, but a prostitution and drug ring. Except, of course, it wasn’t. And what did O’Keefe prove over at NPR that forced NPR chief Vivian Schiller to resign? That some of its fund raisers called the …