Dear colleague,
This fall has brought a climate of fear to our campuses as a consequence of what is happening in Palestine and Israel. It is our duty as educators to show our commitment to academic freedom—and to defend the rights of our students, our colleagues, and our communities to express their views, engage in scholarly discourse, and participate in activism, without fear of reprisal and retaliation. We need to make sure our students are safe and their ability to learn is protected.
We invite you to join a union workshop on “Defending Academic Freedom in a Threatening Climate” on Thursday, December 7, at 6:30 p.m.; click here to register for the Zoom link. Workshop speakers include Jeanne LoCicero, Legal Director of American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, along with our colleagues Audrey Truschke, chair of the Rutgers AAUP-AFT Academic Freedom Committee, and Britt Paris, co-chair of the joint Media and Narrative Committee.
This virtual workshop will cover the protections we have for academic freedom at Rutgers, best practices for educators and students to exercise political expression and free speech, and legal aspects of First Amendment rights on campus.
We hope you’ll join us and bring your questions and your experiences. We are educators and researchers at one of the largest public universities in the country, in one of its most diverse states. What we do to defend academic freedom in these frightening times matters.
In solidarity,
Rutgers AAUP-AFT and Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union
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Visit our website: https://rutgers-ptlfc.org/