Committee A Report
By Peter N. Kirstein, Chair

Committee A was well-represented at the AAUP national meeting last June. Our committee was the first to release a supportive statement on behalf of Steven Salaita, who was fired from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for his ideological position on the Israel/Gaza conflict last August, 2014. Several members of Ill. Committee spoke for a vote of censorship against the U. of I. that was adopted by the members at the annual meeting. Illinois Committee A was cited in the Chronicle and InsideHigherEd for its participation in the censure-resolution adoption.

One of our Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure members, Loretta Capeheart, was a pioneer in litigating academic freedom violations at censured Northeastern Illinois University. She has left Chicago for Portland, Oregon to begin a new chapter in her life. Her dynamism, courage and advocacy for faculty will be sorely missed. She was one of the greatest colleagues ever to serve in any position in our conference. We are very pleased, however, to have such a capable replacement in Robin Meade, who was fired for her criticism of the Moraine Valley Community College administration. She was president of the adjunct union at MVCC. She has won several rulings and received legal support from the national AAUP Legal Defense Fund. She is currently an adjunct at Triton College in River Grove.

Iymen Chehade is also a part-time faculty member who teaches primarily at Columbia College Chicago. Our committee can boast in having two adjuncts on the committee, reflecting the growing awareness of the plight of the adjunct-majority in the United States.

If any of you are having an academic freedom, shared governance or personnel issue on your campus, we are open for business. Just email me at [email protected] The other members are Jerry Kendall. John Marshall Law and John Wilson, co-editor of AcademeBlog.org.