2012 Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom

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“The Constitutional Meaning of Academic Freedom"

Robert C. Post

Thursday, November 1, 2012
4:00 p.m.
Honigman Auditorium
100 Hutchins Hall
University of Michigan Law School

Robert Post is Dean and Sol & Lillian Goldman Professor of Law at Yale Law School. Before coming to Yale, he taught at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall). Dean Post’s subject areas are constitutional law, First Amendment, legal history, and equal protection. He has written and edited numerous books, including Democracy, Expertise, Academic Freedom: A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern State (2012); For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (with Matthew M. Finkin, 2009); Prejudicial Appearances: The Logic of American Antidiscrimination Law (with K. Anthony Appiah, Judith Butler, Thomas C. Grey, and Reva Siegel, 2001); and Constitutional Domains: Democracy, Community, Management (1995). He publishes regularly in legal journals and other publications; recent articles and chapters include “Theorizing Disagreement: Reconceiving the Relationship Between Law and Politics” (California Law Review, 2010); “Constructing the European Polity: ERTA and the Open Skies Judgments” in The Past and Future of EU Law: The Classics of EU Law Revisited on the 50th Anniversary of the Rome Treaty (Miguel Poiares Maduro & Loïc Azuolai eds., 2010); “Roe Rage: Democratic Constitutionalism and Backlash” (with Reva Siegel, Harvard Civil-Rights Civil-Liberties Law Review, 2007); “Federalism, Positive Law, and the Emergence of the American Administrative State: Prohibition in the Taft Court Era” (William & Mary Law Review, 2006); “Foreword: Fashioning the Legal Constitution: Culture, Courts, and Law” (Harvard Law Review, 2003); and “Subsidized Speech" (Yale Law Journal, 1996). He is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Law Institute and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has an A.B. and Ph.D. in History of American Civilization from Harvard and a J.D. from Yale Law School.

The 2012 Davis, Markert, Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom is sponsored by the Academic Freedom Lecture Fund, American Association of University Professors University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Chapter and Michigan Conference,  University of Michigan: Office of the President, Office of the Provost, Office of the Vice President for Communications,   Law School, the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs and an Anonymous Donor.

This lecture is free and open to the public.

Cary Nelson

HISTORIC MICHIGAN CAMPAIGN UNDER WAY

A historic campaign is under way to by University of Michigan graduate research assistants to organize for collective bargaining. A victory for this high profile group of academic employees would be a victory for every cohort of unrepresented research assistants across the country.

Wherever research assistants are organized, they enjoy the rise in standards of treatment  that perhaps no other group of graduate employees need so badly. Teaching assistants often benefit from rise in standards of treatment. An individual research assistant, on the other hand, may suffer under unfair working conditions imposed by one well-meaning but poorly informed faculty member. The benefits of having a union in such situations are immense. Not only does it help hundreds of research assistants on each campus: it also creates a climate of good workplace standards that benefits recruitment, retention, and the overall quality of campus life.

Some may fear that union contracts will mandate wage or benefit increases not built into multi-year government or industry contracts, but the university can easily set aside sufficient funds to cover such typically modest increases.

The University of Michigan Board of Regents has affirmed the right of research assistants to organize, so it is critically important that neither faculty members nor administrators seek to undermine the campaign.

The national AAUP joins our Michigan State Conference in endorsing this campaign. We are eager to offer any help to make it a success.