academic freedom

• 
• SOURCE: NPR
  3/18/2023
  

  Florida Professor: I was Fired for Teaching about Racism

  Although Palm Beach Atlantic University is a private and Christian institution, English instructor Sam Joeckel says that a parent's complaint to the administration that led to his firing goes hand in hand with the efforts of Ron DeSantis to attack higher education in Florida to advance his "anti-woke" crusade. 

• 
• 3/19/2023
  

  Censoring History Education Goes Hand in Hand with Democratic Backsliding

  by Julia Boechat Machado and Ruben Zeeman

  Regimes in the Philippines, India and Brazil have recently tried to censor the teaching of history in service of their poltical goals and claims to power. The pushback by scholars in these countries should inspire historians in Florida and elsewhere to resist the political censorship of research and teaching. 

• 
• SOURCE: Tampa Bay Times
  3/9/2023
  

  Governor, Florida's Faculty are Doing Their Jobs. Let Them Continue

  by Elizabeth Strom

  Florida's higher education reform agenda imagines professors to are engaged in indoctrination, but will prevent them from doing their best research and teaching. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/8/2023
  

  Edsall: Florida's Education Legislation Threatens Academic Freedom. Opinions Differ Whether That's Good

  by Thomas Edsall

  Columnist Thomas Edsall checked in with historian Amna Akbar, a DEI critic, about Florida's education legislation. Akbar isn't a fan, though may conservative think-tank fellows interviewed are. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/8/2023
  

  DeSantis Wants Us to Ignore What Black Children in Florida Need

  Historian Marvin Dunn's "Teach the Truth" tours show that Florida's history can't be taught without acknowledging white racism and terrorism. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/7/2023
  

  This Round of Attacks on Tenure Might Stick

  State legislatures and boards of trustees have long wanted to break the tenure system. Today, more university presidents seem willing to take sides against their faculty. 

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  3/6/2023
  

  "Slavery Was Wrong" and Some Other Things Teachers are Afraid to Teach

  The Rand Corporation found that a quarter of teachers of math, science and English were revising their lesson plans to remove topics on race and gender, with fear of parents being the biggest reason. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  3/3/2023
  

  Florida Faculty Concerned by Potential Ban on Majors

  U of Florida history department chair Jon Sensbach "said the legislation would take state control of higher education to a new level in American history."

• 
• SOURCE: WUFT
  2/24/2023
  

  UF Faculty and Students Host "Can't Ban Us" Black History Teach-In

  “The state of Florida has banned aspects of African American studies within grades K-12 and are now trying to further ban higher education students from learning critical ways to understand how race and racism works,” [historian Paul] Ortiz said.

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  2/27/2023
  

  There's a Long History of Indoctrination in Florida Schools—on the Right

  by Tera W. Hunter

  The author's experiences with a state mandated course contrasting "Americanism" with "Communism" echo in today's attacks on curriculum, and the exclusion of ideas challenging a social order of economic and racial inequality. 

• 
• SOURCE: American Federation of Teachers
  2/27/2023
  

  AAUP and American Fed. of Teachers: Florida Bill "Would Destroy Higher Education as We Know It"

  "Simply put, it would make Florida’s colleges and universities into an arm of the DeSantis political operation."

• 
• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/17/2023
  

  Vincent Lloyd: What's Gone Wrong with Antiracist Politics

  The Villanova professor explains the incidents that led him to ask whether a center-right critique of antiracist rhetoric and discursive rules has some justification, and how a broader coalition against domination can be rescued from some censorious excesses.

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  2/20/2023
  

  Florida Professor Claims Job Threatened for Teaching About Racism

  Samuel Joeckel, who works at a private Christian university in Florida without tenure, claims that the Palm Beach Atlantic University provost came to his classroom to tell him that his contract would be reviewed after a parent complained about "indoctrination" in his class. 

• 
• SOURCE: Persuasion
  2/10/2023
  

  We're Critics of Many DEI Initiatives. Ron DeSantis's Attacks are Still Wrong

  by Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder

  Under the banner of fighting DEI, "DeSantis and his allies are waging an aggressive, highly orchestrated campaign against faculty expertise, faculty autonomy and faculty governance" that will harm academic freedom and education far more than it will help. 

• 
• SOURCE: Slate
  2/9/2023
  

  Podcast: PEN's Jeremy Young Argues Restrictions Won't End with Florida

  Jeremy Young of PEN America and Chyna-Lee Hunter, a Miami high school senior, discuss the chilling effect already spreading from Florida's decision to block the AP African American studies course. 

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  2/6/2023
  

  Yes, DEI Can Conflict with Academic Freedom—and Academic Freedom Should Win

  by Amna Khalid and Jeffrey Aaron Snyder

  Many scholars have crafted careful rationales for why free inquiry and formal policies on inclusion can coexist peacefully. The Hamline University incident shows that, in a moment of crisis, administrators won't deliberate, but will follow a policy script in ways that disempower faculty, infantilize students, and become blunt instruments for reactionaries.

• 
• SOURCE: Academe
  2/6/2023
  

  The End of Tenure and the Transformation of Higher Ed

  by Marc Stein

  The decline in "tenure density"—the proportion of faculty in tenured or tenure-track jobs—is a dire threat to American higher education. 

• 
• SOURCE: Inside Higher Ed
  2/7/2023
  

  It Won't Stay in Florida

  United Faculty of Florida President: "Since 2021, DeSantis has pushed through efforts to compel state-sponsored speech on campus, dismantle oversight, encourage corruption-breeding secrecy and invade the personal lives of all higher ed community members."

• 
• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  2/6/2023
  

  DeSantis's War on Universities Goes Beyond the Influential "Powell Memo"

  by Len Gutkin

  Although the future Supreme Court Justice did lay out a plan to contest ideological control over universities, Chamber of Commerce attorney Lewis Powell was concerned above all with the power of big business to dominate society without opposition or criticism. 

• 
• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/6/2023
  

  Florida is Working to Roll Back a Century of Academic Freedom Protections

  by Glenn C. Altschuler and David Wippman

  Although Florida's "STOP Woke" and "Don't Say Gay" legislation has drawn attention, a far more radical claim is hiding in the state's court cases in defense of the laws: that there is no intellectual freedom for state university professors, whose speech is identical to the policies of the state.