Trustee Responsibility Free Speech

Piper Hutchinson
Louisiana Illuminator

Excerpt: A national free speech organization has sent a letter to LSU President William F. Tate that demands the university undo its termination of a graduate assistant who left a vulgar voicemail for a state senator.

In a letter sent Friday, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a national First Amendment advocacy organization known for its support of conservatives on college campuses, argued LSU had violated the constitutional rights of Marcus Venable, a grad assistant in LSU’s sociology department. He left a phone message for Sen. Mike Fesi, R-Houma, after Fesi gave a speech Tuesday in support of a ban on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender youth.

American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA)

Excerpt: Join the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) on August 9, 2023, at 2 p.m. EST for a webinar exploring free expression and intellectual diversity in American higher education. Dr. Steven McGuire, ACTA’s Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom, will moderate the event. Panelists will examine the necessity of free expression and intellectual diversity, threats to these ideals in today’s activist climate, and ways to protect and promote them on campus. Trustees will leave the event with tools and specific action steps to cultivate free expression at their institutions

Aaron Sibarium
Washington Free Beacon

Excerpt: Stanford Law School has parted ways with the diversity administrator who in March joined students in protesting a sitting federal judge, according to an email reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.

Ryan Stowers
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Over the past several years, state lawmakers have debated a growing number of policies related to academic freedom and free expression on university campuses.

In the urgency to address such severe challenges, it is tempting to seek out the most expedient solution. And few solutions could be more expedient than the top-down coercive power of legislation. That’s not how truth-seeking works.

Jennifer Ruth
Academe Blog

Excerpt: [Professor Kathleen] McElroy is a veteran journalist, with two decades of experience at the New York Times covering obituaries, sports, and other topics before she left to get a PhD and then join UT–Austin’s journalism program, soon serving a term as its director. So when Texas A&M announced that they were recruiting McElroy to relaunch their long-dormant journalism program, they did so with understandable fanfare.

But this is Texas and McElroy is a Black woman who believes broadly in the value of diversity. These factors do not undermine her fitness to run a journalism program, of course, and some might even believe they enhance her fitness, but these factors were, nonetheless, apparently enough to tank the appointment.

Patricia Okker
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: On Friday, January 6, 2023, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican of Florida, announced six new members to the Board of Trustees at New College of Florida, where I was serving as president. The announcement was not surprising. For weeks I had heard reports that appointments were likely, and everyone expected trustees with strong conservative backgrounds.

In the weeks leading up to the board’s first meeting on January 31 — at which I was fired as president — the logic of this militaristic rhetoric became clear. Far more than a political shift in the governance of our small liberal-arts college, New College had become the epicenter of a debate about the future of academic freedom, shared governance, freedom of expression, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.