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academic freedom



  • 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. 


  • 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. 



  • 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. 



  • 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.



  • 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. 



  • 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. 



  • 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.



  • 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."



  • 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. 



  • 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.