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academic freedom

  • SOURCE: Washington Monthly
    7/12/2023

    Our Amicus Brief Against Florida's Stop WOKE Act

    by Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder

    "The Supreme Court’s rejection of affirmative action in college admissions will provoke widespread debate. But not in the classrooms of Florida’s public colleges and universities, because the Stop WOKE Act prohibits it."

  • SOURCE: PEN America
    7/13/2023

    The Next Culture War Battle? College Accreditation

    by Jeffrey Sachs and Jeremy C. Young

    Officials in Florida and elsewhere are seeking to overthrow established relationships with accrediting bodies because those organizations help to shield universities against political censorship and interference with teaching and learning. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    5/17/2023

    Statehouses, not Stanford Students, Threaten Speech on Campus

    by Eduardo Peñalver

    Higher ed administrators have recently flexed their muscle in response to student protests of controversial speakers and demands for content warnings. They appear to have no such sense of purpose when it comes to defending free speech and free inquiry from legislative interference. 

  • SOURCE: Tampa Bay Times
    5/22/2023

    New College Faculty Vote to Censure College's New Trustees

    The censure motion, which was supported by 80% of the faculty, called the new majority of the Board of Trustees negligent in its fiduciary duty to the college because of noncompliance with transparency laws, failure to disclose financial conflicts of interest, and disregard for procedure in reviewing tenure applications. 

  • SOURCE: CNN
    5/15/2023

    I'm Headed to Florida to Teach-In Against DeSantis's Education Policies

    by Kellie Carter Jackson

    This May 17 saw a 24-hour teach-in by historians in St. Petersburg, Florida, to protest the restrictions on curriculum, books and ideas pushed by Governor Ron DeSantis and his allies. As a historian of abolition, the author stresses that denying people the pen may influence them to pick up the sword. 

  • SOURCE: NC Newsline
    5/15/2023

    North Carolina Introduces its own History Bill; Historians Call Foul

    State legislators say they are ensuring that students at North Carolina colleges are taught core concepts in American history. Historians Jay Smith and William Sturkey argue that, since the legislature would determine the content of a mandatory course it amounts to indoctrination and token coverage of Black history. 

  • SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
    5/5/2023

    The Labor of Teaching and Administrative Hysteria

    by Elise Archias and Blake Stimson

    Although diversity and cultural sensitivity administrators often embrace (and arguably encourage) student complaints about ideas presented in the classroom, students are more harmed when administrators use those complaints to undercut the expertise and autonomy of faculty who have effective ways of teaching difficult material.

  • SOURCE: PEN America
    5/2/2023

    Firing of Bakersfield College Prof. Conflates Protected and Unprotected Speech

    Matthew Garrett, a self-proclaimed conservative and tenured professor, was fired for cause by his institution after many cases of controversial speech and some alleged violations of university policy. The university's "kitchen sink" claim against him undermines academic freedom and faculty free speech rights. 

  • SOURCE: PEN America
    5/1/2023

    Academic Freedom Battleground Shifts from Classroom to Institutions

    by Jeffrey Sachs, Jeremy C. Young and Jonathan Friedman

    Conservative leaders like Adam Kissel are advising lawmakers to defeat First Amendment protections for what professors say in the classroom by shifting legislation's focus to defining concepts as outside the bounds of academic disciplines and academic fields as outside the bounds of the university's mission.