Supporting Students Free Expression

George Leef
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

Excerpt: Norman Wang is a professor at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), where he has been on the faculty since 2008, specializing in cardiology. His troubles at the school began in March 2020, after he published an article in the Journal of the American Heart Association (JAHA) entitled “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity: Evolving Race and Ethnicity Considerations for the Cardiology Workforce in the U.S. from 1969 to 2019.”

Shortly after the publication of Wang’s article, it came under attack from Twitter users, who denounced it as “racist.” In July 2020, UPMC officials who had been alerted to Wang’s heresies by the Twitter mob sprang into action against him. On July 31, they summoned him to a meeting with Dr. Samir Saba, chief of UPMC’s cardiology division, and Dr. Kathryn Berlacher, another faculty member, to discuss the article. Wang said that he stood firmly behind it. That could not be tolerated.

Richard K. Vedder
Independent Institute

Excerpt: For learning and discovery communities to flourish, there has to be a diversity of ideas that are explored and debated, with multiple perspectives discussed civilly by veteran scholars—the faculty—as well as inquisitive young learners—the students. While campuses in recent years have obsessed over what are intellectually relatively unimportant dimensions of diversity, such as the skin color of participants in the scholarly enterprise, they increasingly have imposed a leftist monopoly on the exploration of ideas on many campuses, including the nation’s most prestigious ones. A progressive agenda reigns, and questioning it is increasingly rare as woke leaders impose their ideas on the campus community.

Rana Jaleel and Todd Wolfson
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: Since its founding, in 1915, the American Association of University Professors has been the most prominent guardian of academic freedom for faculty members and students, defending that freedom against threats that range from political interference in higher education to the exploitation of contingent academic labor. Yet the former AAUP president Cary Nelson alleges that the AAUP has somehow destroyed its “hundred-year defense of academic freedom” with a single act: the adoption of its recent “Statement on Academic Boycotts.” Others, like Jeffrey Sachs, lament that they are “not quite certain what the policy means” and that, “even worse, the AAUP doesn’t seem to know either.” The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has reiterated its opposition to academic boycotts as “a threat to academic freedom.”

The Editorial Board
Wall Street Journal

Excerpt: Another day, another Biden Administration regulation, and another loss in federal court. This time it’s the Education Department’s 1,577-page rule on Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination. The Supreme Court on Friday upheld lower judges who stayed the regulation and, despite quibbles by four Justices, all nine seem to believe the rule is an overreach.

Virginia King
The College Fix

Excerpt: An open letter that opposes the American Association of University Professors’ new position to support academic boycotts quickly gained over 1,000 signatures from scholars and faculty upset by the recent decision.

Featured
Ron Krebs and Cary Nelson
Petition

On Friday, August 9, 2024, the American Association of University Professors, which has long eloquently defended the core principle of academic freedom, reversed course and declared academic boycotts legitimate.

We believe the AAUP’s new position is wrong-headed and dangerous. We cannot safeguard academic freedom by violating academic freedom. Normalizing academic boycotts poses a profound threat to academic freedom.