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Academic Freedom Alliance statement on the assassination of Charlie Kirk
The Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) is a coalition of faculty from across the country and across the ideological spectrum who are dedicated
to upholding the principles of academic freedom and free speech for faculty at colleges and universities throughout the US.
Located in Princeton, the AFA was founded by Keith Whittington, former Princeton professor of Politics now a professor at Yale Law School; Robert P. George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton; public intellectual and former Princeton professor Cornel West; Jeannie Suk Gersen, a professor of law at Harvard Law School; and Nadine Strossen, the former national President of the American Civil Liberties Union and professor emerita at New York Law School. Since its founding in 2021 the AFA has grown its membership to over 900 faculty from across the country.
Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: Top Republican politicians have fueled the ongoing national repression of higher ed employees and others who have allegedly made offensive statements about last week’s shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. But Texas governor Greg Abbott has taken the campaign to another level: going after individual students.
Abbott, who has more than 1.4 million followers on X, used that social media website to call for Texas State University to expel a student who appeared to mime Kirk’s shooting at a vigil for Kirk. Shortly after, university president Kelly Damphousse announced that a student in a “disturbing” video “is no longer a student at TXST.”
David Sims
The Atlantic
Excerpt: There have already been signs that President Donald Trump’s administration is intent on punishing perceived critics in the media, no matter what complaints about free speech might arise, but the chain of events that shut down Jimmy Kimmel Live feels particularly direct. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said on Benny Johnson’s podcast yesterday.
“These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.” Within hours, Nexstar, a company that operates 32 of ABC’s 200 local affiliates, said it would not broadcast Kimmel’s show for the “foreseeable future.” Quickly after that, ABC announced its decision.
Hollis Robbins
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: The reporting on the new Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression College Free Speech Rankings focuses on how things haven’t changed. The headline of Johanna Alonso’s excellent piece is “Students Report Less Tolerance for Controversial Speakers.”
To be clear, the issue of tolerance for campus speakers—and the physical safety of speakers and attendees—remains paramount, as last week’s violence made clear. But for me, FIRE’s study misses the single most profound change on college campuses: AI, and the reality that students are increasingly doing their intellectual exploration privately, not publicly.
FIRE
Excerpt: Last week, an assassin silenced speech on a college campus. A family lost a father and a husband. As we have said without equivocation, political violence is never an acceptable response to free speech.
Appropriately, we can expect colleges and universities to place even greater emphasis on safety and security ahead of outside speakers arriving on campus moving forward. They have a moral and legal obligation to redouble their efforts to protect free speech as well as their campus community. However, administrators must not pass those security costs along to speakers or use security concerns as pretext to cancel a speaker’s appearance. Rewarding threats of violence by taxing speech or silencing speakers will only invite more threats and more violence.
Judith Butler
Chronicle of Higher Education
Excerpt: On September 4, I received an email from the University of California at Berkeley’s chief legal counsel, David Robinson, informing me that my name has been handed over to the Trump administration in a file containing allegations of antisemitism.
A few days later, I discovered that the university had sent a list of 160 names to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The list includes the names of students, staff, and faculty who may well suffer serious consequences, including the loss of jobs, expulsion, deportation, or harassment. This was a shock for many of us who believed that Berkeley is a university where one can expect support for freedom of expression and guarantees of fair procedure.
