BY GINA TIGRI

Senator Joe McCarthy

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party? This question was famously asked numerous times in the hearings held by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) amid the anti-Communist frenzy known as the Red Scare in the McCarthy era. A new higher education bill was recently passed in Florida that may as well be asking this question of college faculty today—just switch out the word Communist for Democratic.

The new legislation seeks to protect “intellectual freedoms” at colleges and universities. The bill was first introduced on the pretext that schools are brainwashing students with liberal views. It will do three things: prevent institutions from shielding students from viewpoints that make them uncomfortable, create allowances for students to record their classes without the consent of others who are present, and require a yearly survey that collects data on the political views and values represented at Florida’s public colleges and universities. Data collected in these surveys could be used when making future policy decisions.

The legislation is controversial, with support and opposition divided predictably along party lines as Florida Republicans backed the bill while Democrats raised concerns. It is worth mentioning that college and university representatives were unsupportive of the bill as well. The Advisory Council of Faculty Senates released a resolution strongly stating their opposition to the proposed measures. Critics of the bill are concerned that the recording entitlement will limit the free expression of viewpoints shared by both faculty and students in classrooms. Additionally, there are fears of what kinds of “policy changes” may come as a result of the data collected in the political values survey. These measures could also undermine academic freedom, causing faculty to alter their teaching in response to these new allowances for surveillance and monitoring. As controversial as this bill may be, it is not the first time we have seen this kind of government intervention in higher education.

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, academic professionals became targets of efforts to expose or root out communists and others on the political left perceived to be threats to the US government. Fear that students could be exposed to the influence of radical or anti-American political views was widespread. As anti-Communist hysteria increased, many individuals working within higher education were monitored, questioned, intimidated, and blacklisted, and in the end at least 126 faculty members across 58 college campuses were fired because of their suspected beliefs and allegiance to communism or other liberal perspectives. While some institutions protected faculty members’ rights to hold the beliefs that were under attack, many complied with the government intervention, allowing individuals to be persecuted for their views.

Although principles of academic freedom had been widely adopted as a way of protecting faculty members’ freedom of expression, the events of this period revealed that they did not adequately protect faculty from external, politically motivated intrusion. According to John K. Wilson’s A History of Academic Freedom in America, “the McCarthy Era helped spark a new era of academic freedom.” Later refinements and elaborations on principles of academic freedom helped to better protect faculty and institutions from such interference, but the need for protection is just as relevant today as it was at that time.

In reflecting on the past, we can see that there are striking similarities between the events that took place in higher education during the period of McCarthyism and what is taking place with the passing of this current legislation. Conservative paranoia about faculty political views. Conservative-led government intervention in higher education. Increased monitoring of faculty. Increased violations of faculty academic freedom. Increased fear among faculty that their political values will be used against them. And while the measures of this bill do not quite reach the extremes of the McCarthy era, it is a slippery slope to go from encouraging classroom recordings and collecting survey data to having those things weaponized against faculty if the views they express lean too far to the left.

In a recent debate that took place prior to the approval of the legislation, Democratic senator Lori Berman asked her Republican colleagues, “Don’t you think it’s dangerous?” Of course, their response was “no,” but I think it could be. As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” So, let’s learn from our history. This piece of legislation has already been approved, but others like it may soon follow, creating a new Blue Scare. Moving forward, we should critically consider what the potential harms could be in passing bills like this one. In closing, I echo Senator Berman’s concerns about the government interfering in higher education to this extent. Don’t you think it’s dangerous?

Guest blogger Gina Tigri is a student in the PhD in Higher Education program at Rutgers University. She is also an instructor in the College of Communication and Education at California State University, Chico.