Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.
~Frederick Douglass, 1860
‘Fairness for everyone’: Yosemite Community College District trustee duo defies status quo with ambitious due process policy
Read about the groundbreaking due process policy that was created by Trustees Beggs and DeMartini. "This policy is remarkable," said Susan Kruth, FIRE's director of Procedural Advocacy.
Equity for Part-Time Instructors
"More than 50 percent of college teaching staffs are made up of adjuncts, but only a masochist could envy them. Assigned only one or two classes per term with no guarantee of any assignment, they have no benefits, little respect and pathetic pay. They are the Dixie cups of higher education: plentiful, cheap and disposable." ~Leslie Beggs
After years of concern about the poor treatment of part-time professors, Leslie was able to convince her Board colleagues to add better working conditions to the Chancellor's annual goals in 2020. The District is now paying part-time professors for office hours, there’s a seniority system for receiving class assignments, and we’re making progress toward rewarding professional work with professional pay, even if performed part-time.
Academic Freedom is Under Assault
Social Media mobs. Cancel culture. Campus speech policing. These are all part of life in today’s America. Freedom of expression is in crisis. Truly open discourse—the debates, exchange of ideas, and arguments on which the health and flourishing of a democratic republic crucially depend—is increasingly rare. Ideologues demonize opponents to block debates on important issues and to silence people with whom they disagree.
~Philadelphia Statement on Civil Discourse and the Strengthening of Liberal Democracy
Tracking cancel culture in higher education around the nation.
The Philadelphia Statement on Civil Discourse and the Strengthening of Liberal Democracy
What's the Best Way To Protect Free Speech? Ken White and Greg Lukianoff Debate Cancel Culture
Resolution on Racism
Trustee Beggs revised a rough draft of a board resolution on racism which was then unanimously adopted by the Board. She was honored to read it at the full board meeting in September 2020.
Read the complete resolution here.
The State of Free Speech on College Campuses
Go Behind the Scenes of the Struggle for Free Speech at MJC that prompted leslie to run in 2016
More evidence that the exercise of free expression can be a career killer on college campuses.
Read about cases across the country that indicate the importance of free speech.
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