Freedom-Dreams/“https:/www.campusreform.org

“It’s the type of relief I can’t even explain,” said Andrea Sahouri, Journalism ’19, following her acquittal.

As I sat in my hot car on a sunny morning, eager to surprise my boyfriend with homemade cinnamon rolls, I had no idea that he had a much grimmer surprise for me.

The University’s decision to cancel a panel discussion regarding the rule of law in Turkey has sparked national conversation among scholars regarding political pressure from the Turkish government and its potential to interfere with academic freedom at Columbia.

When I run down the stairs into Riverside Park, with some podcast blaring in my ears and sleep still shaking itself from my eyes, I’m concentrating on two things: 1) not falling onto my face, and 2) the way my feet feel upon the pavement. I am just running. I am running down the hill, to the flat stretch of pavement that will eventually bring me right out onto the Hudson. I’m not considering how this run will impact my day’s schedule or the work I should be doing instead. Nor am I thinking about the impending waterscape. Instead, I watch. I’m watching the woman in front of me literally lay down on the pavement to pet her dog’s stomach while he rolls around on the grass, or the father in front of me holding his daughter’s bike and then, all with one push, one, two, three … he lets go and she’s on her own, flying down the pathway for the very first time.

The University Senate’s Commission on Diversity emphasized the need to revisit conversations on Columbia’s free speech policies and the impact of controversial speakers on students at the senate plenary on Friday.

A panel of professors discussed the issue of white supremacy in higher education and the ways in which speech emanating from white supremacists can be considered violent at an Academic Freedom Week event on Tuesday night.

News of Academic Freedom Week has been making the rounds in right-wing circles after the infamous Campus Reform website published an article. The article in and of itself is not of much interest, functioning more as a “callout post” against our slated speakers and their various infractions against the right-wing thought police. What is important, rather, is the framing that this piece and others like it take on. Websites such as Campus Reform are part of a cottage industry built around stoking outrage in response to the work of campus activists. To them, our concern for academic freedom is illegitimate, nothing more than a vessel for “crude propaganda, browbeating, [and] excoriation of [our] opponents.”

The University Senate unanimously passed a resolution in support of freedom of expression on campus at the Senate plenary meeting last Friday.

President of the American Civil Liberties Union Susan Herman, BC ’68, spoke about gun control, the right to dissent, and free speech at a talk hosted on Tuesday by the Athena Pre-Law Society.

After months of debate, the University Senate passed a resolution in support of academic freedom of speech at the Senate plenary meeting last Friday.