What We’re Reading: July 2023

While students are away for the summer, faculty are the focus in articles about how controversial speech has affected hiring and reappointment decisions, and what may happen when a faculty member disagrees with departmental colleagues.

Campus Happenings

The Professor is Canceled. Now What?

Jack Stripling | The Washington Post | June 21, 2023

In 2022, an arbitrator found that the University of Central Florida lacked grounds to fire a tenured professor for creating “a hostile learning environment” through statements about women and racial minorities. Now he is back in the classroom. Similar cases are “tying college administrators in knots as they seek to balance free-speech traditions with goals like diversity and inclusion.”

This Professor Criticized Diversity Statements. Did It Cost Him a Job Offer?

Megan Zahneis | Chronicle of Higher Education | June 28, 2023

A scholar who applied for a position at the University of California, Los Angeles, argues that his candidacy was scuttled after graduate students wrote to the department that his criticisms of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives would undermine “efforts to protect and uplift individuals of marginalized backgrounds.” The department chair acknowledged that “unusual events” affected the hiring process.

Yale Professor Who Diagnosed Dershowitz and Trump in Tweet Loses Appeal

Ryan Quinn | Inside Higher Ed | June 29, 2023

The 2^nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a psychologist whose affiliation with Yale University was terminated by Yale after she tweeted that then-President Donald Trump and lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who had served as legal counsel to Trump, suffered “shared psychosis.” The psychologist argued her statements were protected extramural speech; the court found her affiliation with Yale did not create a contract under which she would enjoy faculty academic freedom protections.

At UChicago, a Debate Over Free Speech and Cyberbullying

Vimal Patel | New York Times | July 3, 2023

In a case about the line between free speech and incitement, a University of Chicago lecturer was slated to offer a seminar on “The Problem of Whiteness.” After an undergraduate posted her photo, email address, course description, and message that “Anti-white hatred is now mainstream academic inquiry,” the lecturer received threatening messages. She postponed her course and filed complaints against the student. The university dismissed her complaints but increased security and affirmed her “right to teach the class.”

State and Federal

A Loss for Academic Freedom in the Fourth Circuit

Keith E. Whittington | Reason | July 6, 2023

After a tenured North Carolina State University professor criticized changes in a departmental program, his department excluded him from that program and upped his teaching load. The professor, alleging retaliation and that his criticisms were protected speech, filed suit. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled “professorial speech in department meetings and the like…is entirely unprotected by the First Amendment.” The author, a Princeton University professor and Academic Freedom Alliance Academic Committee chair, worries the case erodes protections for “dissident faculty members at state universities.”

Op-eds and Thought Pieces

To Encourage Ideological Diversity on College Campuses, Donors Need to Think Bigger

Thomas Gift and Julie Norman | Chronicle of Philanthropy | June 14, 2023

“Why aren’t philanthropists worried about the dearth of ideological diversity putting their money where their mouth is?” That’s the question of co-directors of the University College London’s Centre on U.S. Politics, who call on today’s philanthropists to be the next Cornelius Vanderbilt or Andrew Carnegie in founding new universities—ones committed to ideological pluralism.

75 Years Ago, ‘The Lottery’ Went Viral. There’s a Reason We’re Still Talking About It.

Ruth Franklin | New York Times | June 26, 2023

The author worries that while readers and students of an earlier generation read deeply unsettling fiction, “Today, readers across the political spectrum seem to be losing their appetite for literary discomfort.” While acknowledging that “what reads as discomfort for one person can feel like aggression to another,” she argues that avoiding disturbing fiction imperils our moral development.

Where Does Your Department Stand on Abortion? Antiracism? Immigration?

David A. Bell | Chronicle of Higher Education | June 26, 2023

A Princeton University professor argues department statements will chill the speech of some faculty, as “academic units themselves are political, in the basic sense that they are structures of power, and ones in which certain individuals, namely chairs and tenured professors, wield hugely disproportionate influence.”

Academic Freedom is a Core American Value. We Must Defend It.

Mildred García | Higher Ed Dive | July 5, 2023

The president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities argues that state legislation that may limit academic freedom are analogous to attempts to limit academic freedom during earlier periods of U.S. history, such as the Cold War. What is new, she argues, is that this legislation is meant to signal that while campuses are more diverse, “certain ideas — and certain people — are no longer welcome.” 

Big Read

Report on Free Expression and Respectful Discourse

University of Wyoming Freedom of Expression, Intellectual Freedom and Constructive Dialogue Working Group | June 26, 2023

A University of Wyoming working group of faculty, administrators, a student, and a trustee, submitted recommendations on free expression and respectful discourse to the university president. Recommendations include a “University of Wyoming Principles” free expression statement; policy updates; and civil discourse and constructive dialogue initiatives.