Institutional Governance & Accountability

Johanna Alonso
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: A women’s soccer coach at Geneva College, a Christian institution in Pennsylvania, was fired in June for posting messages supporting the LGBTQ community on her Instagram page, Religion News Service reported.

The coach, Kelsey Morrison, identifies as gay but was celibate, allowing her to remain within the university’s conduct code, which forbids “sexual immorality” including “homosexual behavior.” She had coached at Geneva for two years.

Stephanie Saul
New York Times

Excerpt: Kathleen McElroy, who had recently served as the director of the University of Texas’s School of Journalism, was thrilled to embark on a new assignment: running a similar program at her alma mater, Texas A&M University.

Quickly, though, things started to unravel. Dr. McElroy, who once worked as an editor at The New York Times, said she was notified by the university’s interim dean of liberal arts, José Luis Bermúdez, of political pushback over her appointment.

Greg Sargent
Washington Post

Excerpt: In recent weeks, plaintiffs who are suing to invalidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Stop Woke Act” have been confronting its defenders with a seemingly loaded question: Would the law, which restricts school discussion of race, prohibit a public university professor from endorsing affirmative action in a classroom setting?

Surprisingly, lawyers defending the DeSantis administration just answered this question with a qualified “yes.” Which exposes a core truth about his anti-woke directives: They really do constitute efforts at state censorship, not just of concepts he likes to call “woke indoctrination” but also of viewpoints that are contested yet remain squarely within mainstream academic discourse.

Judith Friedlander
Persuasion

Excerpt: This is hardly the first time in the history of American higher education that elected politicians have threatened the autonomy of academic institutions and the future of academic freedom. Nor is it the first time that opposing factions on college and university campuses have battled over the meaning of academic freedom.

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Note: This is another perspective on ‘Porter v. Board of Trustees of North Carolina State University.’

Excerpt: A divided federal appeals court has ruled against a professor who alleged North Carolina State University retaliated against him for three instances of him speaking his mind.

Michael Bailey
The Free Press

Excerpt: I am best known for studying sexual orientation—from genetic influences, to childhood precursors of homosexuality, to laboratory-measured sexual arousal patterns.