Host a Scholar

Academics are cautiously optimistic on anniversary of revolution.

My first impression of the country was a threat. No, not the customs form that reads, “Warning: death for drug traffickers under Singapore law.” Within two hours of landing, a security guard threatened me with arrest. My crime? Standing outside the airport subway terminal at 3 a.m., reading the schedule. Welcome to Singapore.

The United States has arrested and charged an Iranian semiconductor scientist with violating U.S. export laws by buying high-tech U.S. lab equipment, a development likely to further worsen Iranian-U.S. tensions.

The University of Edinburgh is ending a research deal with Bahrain’s Ministry of Education after human-rights and student groups objected to the plan.

Scholars say moves against critics and their families echo communist repression.

The Sunday Times over the weekend had a feature about six children suffering from Gender Identity Disorder who are being given drugs to delay the onset of puberty, giving them more time to decide whether they wish to change sex later in life.

A legal dispute in Boston pits researchers' academic freedom against a police quest to solve one of the most notorious killings of Ireland's sectarian "Troubles."

Graduate students enroll in the department of social and cultural anthropology at the California Institute of Integral Studies to examine and fight oppression in postcolonial nations, not to encounter it at home.

When soldiers and protesters clashed in downtown Cairo in late December, the army's crackdown left at least 16 dead and hundreds injured. Another victim of the violence was the oldest scientific institute in Egypt, which was largely destroyed in a fire, along with much of its precious library, writes Ursula Lindsey for The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Malaysia will not attain its goal of being the “Harvard of the East” if scholars continue to chase after positions instead of knowledge, Dr Abdul Aziz Bari said today.

Scholars at Risk welcomes the release of two individuals: Vietnamese professor of mathematics, Pham Minh Hoang, who was released from prison on January 13, 2012; and Yassin Ziadeh, the brother of Syrian scholar and activist Radwan Ziadeh. Yassin was released from detention on November 5, 2011. More information on each follows below.

On Wednesday thousands of scholars joined millions of people around the world in online protest of two proposed laws, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). SOPA and PIPA would, in the view of many observers, authorize wide-ranging online censorship in the guise of stopping copyright infringement. So far, the protest appears to have been a success: Congressional support for the proposed laws is crumbling.

VIENNA (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday it did not know an Iranian scientist who was killed last week, rejecting Tehran's suggestions it may have been partly to blame for his death by leaking information about him.

Scholars at Risk welcomes the release of two individuals: Vietnamese professor of mathematics, Pham Minh Hoang, who was released from prison on January 13, 2012; and Yassin Ziadeh, the brother of Syrian scholar and activist Radwan Ziadeh. Yassin was released from detention on November 5, 2011. More information on each follows below.

A group of academics, social activists, writers and students have launched a new campaign to push for amendments to Thailand’s draconian lèse majesté legislation in the hope of ending abuses of the law that they say violates the principle of free speech.

Kenya has published new rules and put more than 200 institutions on notice in a crackdown that will see 21 managers facing criminal charges for operating illegal colleges, with 63 having been closed over the past year.

Four associations that represent college leaders are urging the Colorado Supreme Court to declare that the University of Colorado’s Board of Regents is a quasi-judicial body and thus immune from a lawsuit in which Ward Churchill, the controversial ethnic-studies scholar, challenges his dismissal from the university system’s Boulder campus.

Everyone agrees a recently canceled Iowa State University class on the role of the Bible in business is a First Amendment issue. As to what that issue is, opinions vary.

Robert C. Post’s Democracy, Expertise, Academic Freedom, published by Yale University Press, is a succinct and tightly argued book, and its subtitle, “A First Amendment Jurisprudence for the Modern State,” clearly signals a calm sobriety that can't be taken for granted. It covers topics that typically provoke controversy more often than thought.

The American Association of University Professors last week sent a letter to the City University of New York chancellor and board chair, citing concerns about the “Pathways to Degree Completion Initiative,” a move by CUNY to enable smoother transfer for its community college students to CUNY's four-year institutions.

Chinese dissident writer Yu Jie, who fled to the United States this month, says he was tortured and harassed in 2010 even as the Nobel Peace Prize was being awarded to his best friend, Liu Xiaobo.

The Natural History Museum is today accused by a coalition of prominent academics and cultural figures of helping to break international law by leading a research project which involves an Israeli cosmetics company based in an “illegal” settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Weekday mornings at 5, when the lights on distant hillsides across the border still twinkle in the blackness, Martha, a high school senior, begins her arduous three-hour commute to school. She groggily unlocks the security gate guarded by the family Doberman and waits in the glare of the Pemex filling station for the bus to the border. Her fellow passengers, grown men with their arms folded, jostle her in their sleep.

On 5 January Tunisian Salafists, ultra-conservative Muslims, ended a weeks-long protest at Manouba University's faculty of letters, arts and humanities that had forced the institution to close. It is expected to reopen next week. The case has highlighted the implications of democratic changes in the Arab world for academic freedom in universities.

Lecturers in Malawi have resolved to return to work to end nearly a year of academic freedom protests during a long-running impasse with the government. But with tensions and mistrust persisting, lecturers have been firm about setting out the conditions under which they will resume classes.

When soldiers and protesters clashed in downtown Cairo in late December, the army's crackdown left at least 16 dead and hundreds injured. Another victim of the violence was the oldest scientific institute in Egypt, which was largely destroyed in a fire, along with much of its precious library.

Religiously affiliated colleges in Texas are subject to scrutiny by the state's higher-education oversight board, but only when it receives a complaint about a secular matter, the state's attorney general has concluded.

National Centre for Science Education gives teachers advice on how to deal with demand to drop classes on climate change

Graduation rates in the US have fallen, and states have slashed funding for higher education. As a result, public universities have raised tuition fees, and many are struggling to stay afloat during the recession. But two authors working in the US higher education sector claim that the academy has a bigger battle on the horizon: the "disruptive innovation" ushered in by online education.

THE ECONOMIC and Social Research Institute has been subject to considerable comment in recent days. Specifically, questions have been raised about the independence of its research, the transparency of research funding and the freedom of its researchers to participate in public debate.

A deputy for state Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II argued before Virginia’s highest court Thursday that his office has a right to investigate whether a climate scientist defrauded the state in seeking taxpayer-funded grants for his research.

Buddhist student monks have joined thousands of other university students in a new wave of protests to hit Sri Lanka in recent weeks, forcing the temporary closure of at least two major universities this week and widespread disruption of classes.

Two years ago the supreme court ordered the council of the University of Ilorin in central Nigeria to immediately reinstate 49 lecturers who had been sacked during nationwide industrial action 10 years ago. Now the reinstated academics are back in the legal trenches asking the court to force the university to fully implement the ruling.

In a decision with major implications for church-affiliated colleges and their employees, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously held that the First Amendment precludes the application of federal employment-discrimination laws to religious institutions' personnel decisions involving workers with religious duties.

JOHANNESBURG — They lined up well before dawn, some driving from the deep countryside with bags of fluffy blankets and neatly packed sandwiches, to wait for the gates to a new life to open. They hoped for a shot at a coveted spot at one of South Africa’s public universities, and with it a chance to escape the indignity of joblessness that afflicts more than a third of the nation. By morning, the line was more than a mile long.

A human rights group has begun a study of the controversial lese majeste law and how it affects freedom of expression, academic freedom, civil rights and Thailand's global image.

Teresa R. Wagner is a conservative Republican who wants to teach law. Her politics may have hurt her career.

Budget cuts to higher education were a constant topic of discussion at this year's annual meeting of the Modern Language Association here -- in formal sessions, in hallway chatter and among graduate students trying to find a strategy to get a decent job. But despite nearly unanimous concern about the budget cuts, and widespread anger over how humanities programs are being treated, members of the MLA's Delegate Assembly rejected a proposal that the association encourage all members to talk at least...

Roberto Saviano is an Italian journalist, author of the non-fiction novel Gomorrah (published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux), which to date has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, has been translated into 54 languages and in 2008 was made into an award-winning film. Saviano's book is an engrossing look into the inner workings of the Neapolitan mafia, La Camorra, which has resonated around the world because of the far-reaching arms of organized crime. Shortly after sales of Gomorrah reached...

Education experts have asked the Ministry of Education and Training to create conditions for universities to have more autonomy in making decisions regarding administration, recruitment and enrolment quotas, reports Viet Nam News.

Staging demonstrations that breach the laws of Malaysia is not the proper way to learn about politics. Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said university students, like everyone else, must observe the law, write Jaspal Singh and Roy See Wei Zhi for New Straits Times.

In my first months on the job in 2009, I said in jest that I had no intention of being the last general secretary of the American Association of University Professors. My joke referred partly to what was then the association's dire financial condition, but also to a less immediate but more challenging threat: the external perception and internal sense that the AAUP was on the defensive and in decline.

Sindh University in Jamshoro, Pakistan, is currently facing a law and order crisis as alleged criminals who enjoy the support of certain political parties have been on the rampage and have resorted to targeting teachers, writes Jan Khaskheli for The News.

Scholars at Risk is gravely concerned for Professor Masaud Jahromi, Chairman of Telecommunication Engineering Department at Ahlia University, Manama, Bahrain. SAR asks for letters, faxes and emails urging the appropriate authorities to intervene to ensure that his December 22nd hearing is addressed in a manner consistent with internationally recognized standards of due process and fair trial, in accordance with Bahrain’s obligations under international law.

The European Students Union says Belarus should not be allowed to join the European Higher Education Area because it denies academic freedom.

Striking academics have once again shut down Nigeria's public universities, and students have been sent home. Leaders of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, or ASUU, have accused the federal and regional governments of deliberately failing to execute a memorandum of understanding on funding, salaries and conditions signed two years ago.

BEIJING — The actor Christian Bale was assaulted by government-backed guards on Thursday when he tried to visit a blind lawyer who has been illegally confined to his home in eastern Shandong Province.

He is Egypt's fourth higher education minister in 10 months. His predecessor held the post for four months and was forced to quit along with the rest of the government after clashes between pro-democracy protesters and security forces left 45 people dead. When named universities minister this month, Dr Hussein Khaled said he would handle the job regardless of when he might leave it.

Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Thailand defended laws protecting the country’s royal family from insults amid growing international criticism of “harsh” prison sentences in recent weeks for a U.S. citizen and 61-year-old retired truck driver.