There seems to be lots of organizations forming to protect academic freedom and freedom of speech, and the three I know of (two of which haven’t yet been announced) include a mixture of liberals and conservatives, which is great. After all, freedom of thought and expression isn’t the bailiwick of any one side of the political spectrum.
I found out about this one from my colleague Brian Leiter, who posted this on his website Leiter Reports: (CHE is the Chronicles of Higher Education, and you should read their article; link below). Brian’s short post:
“Academic Freedom Alliance”
This new organization will provide moral and in some cases legal support for faculty whose academic freedom rights (including their right to engage in extramural speech) are under attack. CHE has an article about the new organization here. I will note that in recruiting initial members, it was made very clear that the AFA would have defended Ward Churchill and Steven Salaita, as well as Amy Wax and Adrian Vermeule. That is how a principled defense of the academic freedom rights of faculty should proceed.
ADDENDUM: While the delusional Wokerati in academia pose a growing threat to academic freedom, it’s worth noting that in the examples mentioned above, the two faculty who lost their jobs were targeted, successfully, by reactionary forces outside the universities.
It’s a truly impressive list of leaders (many from beleaguered Princeton University, where the group was founded) and members, all of whom are academics (they seem to have forgotten about Professor Ceiling Cat, Ph.D). The legal advisory team comprises several heavy hitters, including Jeannie Suk Gersen and Randall Kennedy from Harvard Law School, as well as a number of high-powered private attorneys. These can and will be used to put pressure on universities who are violating principles of free speech and academic freedom.
There’s also a reading list of books, and one of articles, which include pro-free-speech pieces by Brian Leiter, John McWhorter, Cornel West and Robert George, Randall Kennedy, and Jeannie Suk Gersen. I’ve read most of those pieces, and it’s really worth going through them. The “other historical examples” on the book list page contains two of the founding principles of The University of Chicago.
And a few tidbits from the CHE article by Wesley Yang. First, the genesis and the mission:
When I spoke to the Princeton University legal scholar and political philosopher Robert P. George in August, he offered a vivid zoological metaphor to describe what happens when outrage mobs attack academics. When hunted by lions, herds of zebras “fly off in a million directions, and the targeted member is easily taken down and destroyed and eaten.” A herd of elephants, by contrast, will “circle around the vulnerable elephant.”
“Academics behave like zebras,” George said. “And so people get isolated, they get targeted, they get destroyed, they get forgotten. Why don’t we act like elephants? Why don’t we circle around the victim?”
George was then recruiting the founding members of an organization designed to fix the collective-action problem that causes academics to scatter like zebras. What had begun as a group of 20 Princeton professors organized to defend academic freedom at one college was rapidly scaling up its ambitions and capacity: It would become a nationwide organization. George had already hired an executive director and secured millions in funding.
In the summer, George emphasized that the organization must be a cross-ideological coalition of conservatives, liberals, and progressives who would be willing to exert themselves on behalf of controversial speakers no matter which constituency they had offended. Though the funding for the organization came from a primary conservative donor, and many of those who feel most besieged in today’s academic environment are on the right, the threats to academic freedom were myriad — and did not threaten only those on the right. A principled defense of core values would require scrupulous neutrality in application and significant participation from across the ideological spectrum. “If we were asked to defend Amy Wax, we would,” he said. “If we were asked to defend Marc Lamont Hill, we would.”
Today, that organization, the Academic Freedom Alliance, formally issued a manifesto declaring that “an attack on academic freedom anywhere is an attack on academic freedom everywhere,” and committing its nearly 200 members to providing aid and support in defense of “freedom of thought and expression in their work as researchers and writers or in their lives as citizens,” “freedom to design courses and conduct classes using reasonable pedagogical judgment,” and “freedom from ideological tests, affirmations, and oaths.”
The alliance will intervene in academic controversy privately, by pressuring administrators, and publicly, by issuing statements citing the principles at stake in the outcomes of specific cases. Crucially, it will support those needing legal aid, either by arranging for pro bono legal representation or paying for it directly.
That’s very good news.
I think FIRE has a broader remit, although there is some overlap. First, they are not just interested in faculty, but also in students. Second, although they spend a lot of time (or press) on free speech, they also deal with other civil liberties issues relating to, for example, campus sexual assault. I think a faculty-led initiative specifically on free-speech and academic freedom is important and useful.
That is a ray of light. But of course there will be challenges and possible developments that threaten to fracture the organization. What if a college professor proceeds to teach Creationism, and in the name of academic freedom there are calls to protect them by this organization?
I was struck b the same thought upon reading about the group’s mission and what I took to be our host’s semi-facetious parenthetical plaint that he’d been overlooked for an invitation to join. I wonder whether he might be blackballed by the Right for having received the Discotute’s “censor of the year” award over l’affaire Hedin.
I should hope that an organization boasting such illustrious membership would readily distinguish between the “freedom to design courses and conduct classes using reasonable pedagogical judgment” and smuggling religion into public-university classrooms under the guise of pseudoscience.
Occam’s Razor says it was an unfortunate oversight. My crystal ball says that it might soon be corrected.
I would support such a professor as long it is not part of the general biology classwork. In other words, it would be allowed in an optional seminar but not part of BIO 101.
An optional seminar for which course credit toward graduation is awarded? How would you distinguish that from teaching it in BIO 101 at a university where BIO 101 is an elective course?
If students want to attended a seminar sponsored by a private organization, even if it’s private organization on campus, I say have at it. But a public university has no business involving itself in teaching creationism (which is naught but a religious doctrine).
Perhaps we are not talking the same language and I should clarify my view.
A professor has the right to teach nonsense outside of the university and the right to advocate for an absurd seminar. I would argue against approval of such a class but, if the class is approved, he would be able to teach it within the university.
As long as the professor follows university rules, there should be few consequences to creationist views. Idiotic views should be protected for tenured professors. However, they could easily be a factor to deny a biology professor from receiving tenure.
Presumably such an “absurd seminar” would be subject to the same “approval” process as would a section of BIO 101 that dedicates a portion of its course time to covering intelligent design (as was the case, as I understand it, with Prof. Hedin at Ball State U), so I’m not seeing the distinction here.
But then, academe is not my bailiwick, so I’m uncertain what approval process would apply.
Perhaps our host could weigh in, if he chances to read this exchange.
Here here, counsellor.
D.A., J.D.
NYC
It’s good news but probably won’t change much if they mostly spend their energy defending individuals from persecution. At most they may prevent someone from losing their academic job but, even then, the persecutors will probably dismiss it with “He had a good lawyer”. They won’t be able to prevent reputations being trashed. It doesn’t sound like they’ll do much to diminish McWhorter’s Woke Religion. Perhaps I’m too cynical. Wouldn’t be the first time.
I’ve sent them my $50 and expect to contribute plenty more up the line. Membership is invitational at this point, but they’ll probably be opening it up to membership applications later on this year. Paul’s comment in 4. above has some truth to it, but on the other hand, watch out for the avalanche effect and the generation of a critical mass of such organizations once there are enough of them and they start winning more victories. Once that happens, watch out, Wokies…
Let’s hope you are right. We have to keep pushing.
Hear, hear!
I would take exception to the implication that Ward Churchill should be classified as an academic cancelled by conservatives. Conservatives did indeed target him, after his “radical” rhetoric reached an outlandishly overheated level, such as characterizing the victims of 9/11 as Nazis. But his record of academic plagiarism and fraud—not least a fake claimed Indigenous identity—made him almost comically vulnerable to dismissal on purely professional grounds, as the University of Colorado finally did.
Nonetheless, he is memorialized in a generalization about academic behavior that I have named Churchill’s Law: the temperature of an academic’s “radical”-sounding prose will vary directly with the phoniness of his/her official academic pose. A related, earlier version of this relationship, which we might call Mulcahy’s Theorem, was explored by Mary McCarthy in her classic novel “The Groves of Academe”.
I take it then that you’re conceding for the sake of argument, Jon, that Churchill could not have been fired on the bases of his comment that the 9/11 victims were “little Eichmanns” or of his essay “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens” alone, however repugnant one might find them?
Exactly, Ken. Churchill was firebait for academic misdeeds quite aside from the
overheated rhetoric. The latter, which I view as part of a pose meant to cover his
academic inadequacies, finally drew unfriendly, as opposed to adoring, attention.
[But it did get him a few speaking engagements before he justly became old news.]
Is one of the new organizations FAIR (Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism)? While not explicitly directed at universities, that appears to fall under their mission. And what a board of directors! Ayaan Hirsi Ali, John McWhorter, Glenn Loury, Steven Pinker, Bari Weiss, Andrew Sullivan, Helen Pluckrose, Coleman Hughes, Peter Boghossian, and many more!
Weiss mentioned it at her Substack site which points to:
https://www.fairforall.org/about/