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Purpose – To outline the history of ethical regulation in the social sciences and to question the proportionality of its costs and benefits.

Methodology/approach – Secondary analysis of primary literature.

Findings – Ethical regulation in the social sciences has been driven more by institutional reputation management than human subject protection. It has a range of social and economic costs that have not received adequate critical appraisal.

Social implications – Ethical regulation in the social sciences may be highly damaging to a society's ability to understand itself, particularly by constraining scientific research relative to journalism or imaginative forms of communication.

Originality/value of paper – Review of the most current research and an explanation of the positive case against regulation.

This essay offers a subjective literary exploration of personal events relevant to understanding an assault on academic freedom in a two-year college. The critically qualitative inquiry focuses on two events: (a) the questioning by faculty of dual credit policies and (b) an administratively engineered disciplinary action that functioned to have a chilling effect on free speech and to, thereby, quell academic freedom. The dual credit story comes in the form of an embedded narrative essay previously published as a Facebook note. That embedded essay presents the tale of the author and a colleague, the advisor for their community college newspaper, exercising their academic freedom to critically engage a community college administration’s violations of Illinois State dual credit laws. The embedded essay serves also to reveal an administrative response to the professors’ decision to report the violation of state law to the Higher Learning Commission and the Illinois Community College Board. Following that, the essay provides a qualitative examination of the administrative response and explains how the response served to quell academic freedom.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the world is experiencing the greatest refugee crisis in recorded history alongside increasingly restrictive limits on asylum seekers and refugees. In 2020, the US administration established a ceiling for refugees of 18,000 people, the lowest number on record, and only 11,814 refugees were admitted to the United States. The Biden administration has expressed commitments to building a coherent asylum and refugee system and quickly reversing recent detrimental policies. But the administration has cautioned how quickly change might occur, given how “agencies and processes…have been so gutted.”¹

2016 to 2020 included an overwhelming series of changes to laws and policies affecting asylum seekers, often with little documented planning or communication, wreaking severe effects on conditions for asylum seekers at the US–Mexico border. These changes had significant consequences for human rights, most notably the linchpin right of access to information. At the US–Mexico border, must the right “to seek, receive and impart information” be fulfilled in order to fulfill the right to asylum?

While information professionals are not expected to be experts in law, they are experts in understanding the link between access to information and the realization of justice and human rights. This chapter investigates the role of the information professional in the fulfillment of the right to asylum, particularly in the context of contemporary asylum seekers at the US–Mexico border, volatile information landscapes, and the legal and historical framework in the United States for seeking asylum.

Often culture, socio-economic conditions and their multiple roles and responsibilities towards family, work and social life impede women from achieving academic goals. Online learning is perceived as flexible, ‘comfortable’ and as a mode of learning which can be better balanced with other demands and responsibilities such as work, family and social life. With this study, the aim of this chapter was to focus on the ‘geography’ of online learning, explore whether it supports women’s access to higher education and understand whether women find online learning to be a fulfilling experience. The participants in this study confirmed that online learning makes higher education more accessible to women who might otherwise find it difficult to balance multiple roles and responsibilities with academic aspirations. Female students value the flexibility and convenience of online learning and despite challenges (e.g. handling workload or technology), their learning experience is positive. Interestingly, participants value asynchronous online communication with peers and tutors but learn better in a face-to-face environment. The findings of this chapter have implications for online programme designers, programme managers and directors who should consider the multiple responsibilities of female students and their preference for a more personalized learning environment.

Our Dublin correspondent telegraphed last night: