Inside Higher Ed: Patterns in Academic Persecution
The Scholar Rescue Fund drew applications from oppressed academics in 101 different countries in its first five years of operations, suggesting “at least a low level of scholar persecution in a surprisingly wide range of countries and regions” — although it’s most prevalent in the Middle East/North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Scholars from the two regions accounted for 61 percent of all applicants from 2002-7 and 73 percent of grantees.
“Scholar Rescue in the Modern World,” a report being released today by the Institute of International Education (home of the Scholar Rescue Fund), identifies such trends in reported persecution across 847 grant applications. The Scholar Rescue Fund awards fellowships for scholars to hold temporary academic posts abroad on the basis of the urgency of threats they face at home and the quality of their academic work. The report’s authors acknowledge the limitations of a small data set and of the fund’s reach — North Korea, for instance, is not represented in the application pool — but also assert the importance of gleaning what trends one can.
The Chronicle: For ‘Rescued’ Scholars, Persecution Came in Many Forms and Many Lands
A marine biologist in Ukraine was fired from his university position for studying mollusks in the bay near his institution, despite warnings from the government to focus his academic inquiries elsewhere.
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Detroit’s Schools Are Going Bankrupt, Too
Wall Street Journal: Detroit’s Schools Are Going Bankrupt, Too
Now’s the time to cast off collective bargaining agreements and introduce school choice.
‘Am I optimistic that they can avoid it . . . ? I am not.” That’s what retired judge Ray Graves said this week when asked whether the Detroit public schools, which he is advising, would be forced into bankruptcy. Facing violence, a shrinking student body, and graduating just one out of every four students who enter the ninth grade on time, the city’s schools have been stumbling for years. Now they face a seemingly insurmountable deficit and are expected to file for bankruptcy protection at about the time that students should be settling down in a new school year.
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Posted in Campaigns & Contracts, Unions, Working conditions
Tagged Collective bargaining, Commentary, Detroit, school choice