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George Packer
The Atlantic
Excerpt: In June 1953, at the height of the McCarthy era, while congressional investigators and private groups were hunting down “subversive” or merely “objectionable” books and authors in the name of national security, the American Library Association and the Association Book Publishers Council issued a manifesto called “The Freedom to Read.”
This past June, the library and publishers’ associations reissued “The Freedom to Read” on its 70th anniversary. Scores of publishers, libraries, literary groups, civil-liberty organizations, and authors signed on to endorse its principles. And yet many of those institutional signatories—including the “Big Five” publishing conglomerates—often violate its propositions, perhaps not even aware that they’re doing so.
Katherine Knott
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: If colleges and universities want to receive funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), they’ll have to certify that they don’t operate any diversity, equity, inclusion or accessibility programs that violate federal antidiscrimination laws, under a new NIH policy announced Monday.
The change appears to codify parts of President Donald Trump’s executive orders that banned funding for DEI programs and builds on the strategy to leverage colleges’ research funding to compel certain behaviors. But the new policy goes even further than the president’s directives, barring colleges from boycotting Israel or Israeli businesses if they want to receive NIH grants.
FIRE
Excerpt: FIRE today filed a "friend of the court" brief in support of the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers in their lawsuit against the Department of Justice and other federal agencies. FIRE argues that the Trump administration's actions against Columbia University are unlawful and unconstitutional attacks on freedom of expression, freedom of association, and academic freedom. The brief's summary of argument follows.
J. D. Tuccille
Reason
Excerpt: Given the censorious conduct of colleges and universities in recent years, it takes a lot to get free speech advocates to treat them as aggrieved parties. But the Trump administration has accomplished that by using the power of the state to coerce changes in campus political climates, disciplinary procedures, and hiring practices. Harvard University is digging in its heels and suing the federal government in response.
But if institutions of higher learning really want to assert their independence, they should emulate a school with a lower profile and fewer resources that won its freedom by cutting ties with the government decades ago: They should follow the example of Hillsdale College.
