BY HANK REICHMAN

Last week the AAUP, joined by more than 90 other groups, issued a powerful “Joint Statement on Legislative Efforts to Restrict Education about Racism and American History.”  And, of course, it’s not only legislation.  The continuing controversy over the failure of the University of North Carolina Board of Trustees to approve a tenured appointment for Nikole Hannah-Jones, lead writer on the New York Times’ 1619 Project, also highlights the persistence of both institutional racism in education and political assaults on the academic freedom of faculty members to determine, in Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter’s famous words, “who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.”  Clearly, the battle to defend the right of instructors — tenured, tenure-track, or contingent — to teach about race and racism and to employ whatever scholarly approach, including “Critical Race Theory,” that they determine appropriate to such teaching is at the moment the central front in the broader defense of academic freedom.

In this light it is worth calling attention to two documents recently published on the Internet.  The first is a remarkable open letter to the faculty, staff, and students of the University of North Carolina (UNC) from Mimi V. Chapman, MSW, PhD, Chair of the Faculty and Frank A. Daniels Distinguished Professor for Human Service Policy Information and Associate Dean for Doctoral Education in the UNC School of Social Work, published on June 19.  It reads:

Dear Carolina Community:

Like many of you, this weekend I find myself with a heavy heart. Despite calls for action from the Faculty Executive Committee, from individual faculty members, from the Council of Chairs, from alumnae, from donors, and from funders to act without delay on the tenure case of Nikole Hannah-Jones, thus far, the Board of Trustees, to which our University is entrusted, has remained stubbornly silent. The reputational threat to our University grows by the day and we remain in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.

Couple this situation with departure notices from notable faculty women of color, individuals who are leaders on this campus who called us to confront hard truths and provided roadmaps for change. They likely did not leave in direct response to Nikole Hannah-Jones’ tenure case—academic hiring is a long process that predates the current situation—but what is happening with Ms. Hannah-Jones is emblematic of one set of reasons that likely prompted their decisions. As a community, we can and must do better by faculty, staff, and students of color. But to do that work, much of which is underway, we must resolve the status of Ms. Hannah-Jones.

I want to tell you today what I know about that situation, noting that it is both a personnel matter and, at present, also a legal matter. Those realities mean that it is very difficult for the administration—meaning our chancellor and provost—to make public comments. Accordingly, I have asked them for updates and have let them know that I would be sharing my understanding of what is happening and has happened with you. I want to be clear that I am not speaking for them. They have a communications team for that. But I have spoken with them and want you to know that what I am conveying is informed by those conversations.

First, to the past. Some members of our community have called for more transparency around how a fixed term path for Ms. Hannah-Jones came to be. As was publicly reported and confirmed, Ms. Hannah-Jones’ tenure dossier was received by the provost in November. However, questions coming through informal channels caused the provost to delay sending the dossier until January so that he could fully prepare for any questions or concerns the BOT might raise. It is my understanding that those concerns included three general categories: 1) the structure of her ongoing employment by The New York Times as well as UNC-Chapel Hill, 2) her teaching and scholarly potential, and 3) academic concerns associated with The 1619 Project. Our provost, consistent with his regular practice, asked others on campus with relevant expertise to assist him as he prepared to respond to questions in these areas. This preparation was done between November and the start of the spring semester. The dossier was sent to the Trustees for consideration at their January 2021 meeting. At that point, the chair of the BOT’s University Affairs Committee indicated that he had questions, though no specific questions were posed, and said that consideration of the dossier would be delayed. It was then that the administration, together with Dean King, spoke with Ms. Hannah-Jones about making use of a relatively new structure within our tenure policy—the variable track—by which someone begins on a fixed term with the option of switching to a tenured or tenure track position at a later date. While some may think the administration should have waited until the March BOT meeting to see what would happen, the choice was made because of concerns that Ms. Hannah-Jones might accept another offer and uncertainty about the BOT’s timing for a response.

At this point, I want to be clear that the request I am about to make comes only from me. I ask that the campus community speak loudly and with one voice. If you or your department or school has not yet spoken out, now is the time to do so. We need every dean and every department chair on this campus to make a statement, send it to the BOT, and put it on your websites; we need student groups, particularly those that espouse free speech and thought diversity to speak up; athletes and coaches, we need you to take a stand; and concerned citizens who want your children’s degrees from UNC to continue to stand for excellence, please call your representatives and write to your local newspapers. Make sure that all such communications are conveyed to the Board of Trustees. Please send them to the Office of Faculty Governance (facgov@unc.edu or the mailings address below) as well so that we can keep a record. You do not have to agree with Ms. Hannah-Jones’ conclusions in The 1619 Project to do this. You only have to agree that faculty voice must govern the tenure process for academic integrity to have meaning. If outside bodies, in this case the BOT, without subject matter expertise are the arbiters of faculty scholarship, all faculty members run the risk of being punished for work that questions the status quo, threatens some outside interest, or makes people uncomfortable. Such a path takes us back to times when scholars from Socrates to Galileo were punished for their ideas. That is a path where light and liberty die. Don’t let it. Use your voice. Keep going. Stand strong.

Happy Juneteenth,

Mimi V. Chapman

The second piece is an opinion piece published today by the History News Network by Wallace Hettle, professor of history at the University of Northern Iowa, entitled “Keep History Teachers Free to Teach, in Iowa and the Nation.”  It reads:

The Iowa legislature has just passed a new law on teaching about racism in the Iowa schools. It is long, vague, and contradictory. It is a confusing, poorly drafted piece of legislation. It is clear, though, that it drastically restricts speech on the part of students and teachers. It is now law, but unlikely to have much legal impact as it is almost certainly unconstitutional and does not include tough enforcement measures.

Yet it still matters. We are losing many of our best college graduates to places like Chicago, Minneapolis, and Texas.  Our civic leaders try to win new businesses in the state yet employers are unlikely to invest in a state that looks like Mississippi, only with cold weather.

Reading this new law felt like skimming the Terms of Service on a commercial website, or carefully reading the warranty on a new toaster oven.  It left me wondering how such a mess received the support of GOP leaders.

Sadly, this law is purely political. It has arrived in the midst of a larger movement against Critical Race Theory (CRT) a doctrine almost solely taught in law schools. Yet it will damage faculty governance over teaching in universities, and, along with recent threats to academic tenure, make it difficult to recruit the best professors to our state. However, it meshes well with current Republican thinking in the age of Trump.  Iowa has a long tradition of local control of education. However, this law gives most power to the legislature. On a variety of issues, from hog lots to COVID-19 masking, the Iowa GOP believes in local control, except when it doesn’t.

The law seems to protect students against discrimination based on their “political ideology.” That sounds laudable, but it does not effectively define “ideology,” creating confusion. Other elements of the law seem equally problematic. For example, it prohibits teaching anything with the consequence that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of that individual’s race or sex.”

I’m not a lawyer, but it appears that the legislature has just passed a law against hurt feelings. My students are adults, and I love hearing their varied opinions. But when they learn about slavery, Indian removal, or the Vietnam War, it might be distressing. Feel good history, which celebrates great men, might sound fine. Unfortunately, it obscures the fact that disagreement and dissent are crucial to our country’s past.

Teaching about race and anti-racism has been central for the field of history for more than a century. It has always been controversial because it has always been uncomfortable. And that won’t change. American history contains stories of thoughtfulness and heroism. It also contains stories of brutality and hatred.

We have to tell the uncomfortable stories, the stories of Jim Crow, slavery, and race riots. Why? Because we can do better. The history of Reconstruction or the Civil Rights movement shows us that we HAVE done better.

We have a set of principles based on equality, derived from the Enlightenment. That is, we value freedom. It is precisely because we are committed to freedom that talking about unfairness and inequality can be so painful.

It can also be tremendously liberating; it offers the opportunity to change; to move closer to that American ideal of freedom. Let’s try to get there. But we will always be uncomfortable. It can feel like pushing a boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back to the bottom. But that boulder won’t stay at the bottom. That is because Americans want real history–the stories that tell about our best moments and also our worst.

Twenty-five years ago, I moved to Iowa in order to teach history. I had been told three things about the state: it was cold in the winter, flat, and had a great system of education.  Iowa winters are undeniably cold.  It is not flat, and my first walk up College Hill in Cedar Falls cured me of that mistaken impression. And it did have a great system of education. UNI may be a small school, but I love the students. They are willing to think hard about the past.  It is hard to define “Iowa nice,” but our students have it and I am grateful for that. Is UNI still part of a great system of education, known across the country, and stretching from kindergarten to college?  Maybe, but that tradition is hanging by a thread.  A key step in saving it would be studying history, but not the warm and fuzzy fantasies that the legislature has created.  There is a better way: let’s give teachers and professors, who have studied the field, a chance to do their jobs without stifling control from the legislature and governor in Des Moines.