“Academic Freedom and University Politics” by Joan Wallach Scott

The article is here;Introduction:

The United States is in difficult times. Fundamental beliefs in democratic institutions have been eroded, constitutional protections have been undermined by a radical right-wing majority on the Supreme Court, and reason is no barrier to the sexual liberation made possible by his predecessors. . President Donald Trump. As paranoia, accusations, retaliation, and hate speech run rampant on the internet, culminating in dangerous and sometimes deadly activities in “real life,” education in general and universities in particular have been singled out for attack.

Attacks on education are not new; right-wing think tanks and politicians have been attacking them for decades. But when Republican lawmakers and radical activists use their power to send censors directly into classrooms and libraries, they counter the specter of “woke” indoctrination among conservative parents and take back control of their children. This moment somehow seems more dangerous because it promises.

One of the semantic inversions that the right is masterfully employing is the enactment of censorship in the name of free speech and academic freedom. The term itself seems to have lost its purchase value. Once a weapon of the weak, it is now seized by the powerful as a legal tool to censor what they consider unacceptable criticism of national policies, inequality, and injustice. name of freedom.

And perhaps most hypocritically, censors claim to be keeping “politics” out of universities. The rise in politicization in the name of purging “politics” is a surprising result. The two are not the same. Politics (as I prefer to use the term) refers to contests over meaning and power where the outcome is not predetermined. Those who politicize, or better yet rely on partisanship, know in advance the consequences they wish to impose and the enemies they wish to defeat. In theory, politics is the center of free inquiry associated with democratic education, and partisanship is its antithesis. In fact, the relationship between the two is not as simple as their conflict suggests.

As more than a century of cases examined by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) demonstrate, maintaining political and partisan boundaries is difficult, if not impossible. Any critical scholarship that challenges the interests of businessmen and politicians, however rigorous and disciplined, will inevitably be subject to (partisan) charges that it is unacceptably “political” Become. As a result, its supporters were often fired. Throughout its long history, AAUP has sought to strengthen political and partisan boundaries through conceptual and practical tools. Claims of objectivity or neutrality in “scientific” research. Tenure; Faculty Governance. “responsibility”; and the designation of “off-campus speech” as guaranteeing the protection of academic freedom.

A wealth of material now exists (statements of principles, guides to good practice, reports) to help codify the meaning of that freedom, and is regularly updated in association documents. red book. This provides important ammunition for the struggle to protect democratic education from censorship, even though the need to constantly refine and update the Protocol suggests an ongoing (seemingly eternal) nature of the struggle. do.

Despite changing historical contexts, political and partisan lines are by no means secure. Because it constitutes an inherent tension in knowledge production that cannot be resolved either by law, administrative statute, or academic expertise. Academic freedom eases tensions, but it is not a solution. This is because when knowledge production (whether in the sciences, social sciences, or humanities) is critical of prevailing norms, it invites the ire of partisans who seek to protect the integrity of those norms. is. their truth. Politics and partisan tensions are the condition (or fate) of American democratic higher education, a state of uncertainty (political theorist Claude Lefort associates uncertainty with democracy), and a state of uncertainty (political theorist Claude Lefort associates uncertainty with democracy). , which requires a kind of continuous critical engagement, a nuance of interpretation, attentiveness. Complexity, philosophical consideration, and openness to change should be the goals of a university education.