POSTED BY KELLY HAND

The AAUP continues to call attention to the targeted harassment of faculty, which has followed an increasingly familiar pattern since the 2016 election. Right-wing websites such as Campus Reform and the Professor Watchlist publicize, and frequently distort, statements or social media postings by faculty members whose perspectives on racism and other topics they deem objectionable. Such concerted efforts to stir up outrage typically result in hostile emails and phone calls—including threats of injury, sexual assault, or death. In some cases, college and university administrations have responded by suspending or dismissing targeted faculty members.

Writing for AAC&U’s flagship journal, Liberal Education, Joan Wallach Scott, a member of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, calls on administrators to stand by beleaguered faculty and the principles of academic freedom rather than yielding to political pressure. In “Targeted Harassment of Faculty: What Higher Education Administrators Can Do,” Scott offers historical context for the current wave of harassment campaigns and discusses examples of bad and good responses by administrators to recent controversies. Referring to the exemplary response of Syracuse University president Kent Syverud to attacks against Dana Cloud, Scott writes,

The firm and courageous refusal to allow threats to compromise the integrity of the institution, or to bow to those who would impugn it, is the only way to protect the university as a safe space for debate and for the pursuit of the knowledge on which free societies depend.

You can find information about the targeted harassment of faculty and resources for fighting against it on the AAUP’s One Faculty, One Resistance website.