BY MATT COHEN

NB: I write this post as an individual, but our AAUP chapter has issued a statement about the resolution proposed to the University of Nebraska Board of Regents regarding Critical Race Theory.

Critical Race Theory, the latest elixir of Rightist fear and rage, has become a political chip in the Republican primary contest for the office of the governor of Nebraska. One of the candidates, Jim Pillen is Chair of the state university system’s Board of Regents. He recently proposed a resolution to the board to prohibit the “imposition” of Critical Race Theory in the curriculum of the system. The resolution represents a usurpation of faculty control over the curriculum. It was something of a relief to read the statement issued on July 21, 2021, by the President of the system, Ted Carter (a retired Navy admiral) and all the university chancellors, criticizing the measure.

Recently AAUP and the NU administration have been making good improvements together, collaborating to get UNL off of AAUP’s censure list for its violations of AAUP guidelines in the de facto firing of Courtney Lawton in 2017 due to political pressure. If Pillen’s measure passes, UNL will certainly remain on that list.

UNL students are doing great reporting on the issue, asking hard questions. Student athletes are taking the lead in voicing their opposition to the resolution. It feels good to have so many people at the university on the same page in this way, and often in UNL’s past, when there has been this kind of unity, academic freedom has been advanced.

Still, the mere proposing of the resolution has had a negative impact on faculty and student morale, to say nothing of the NU system’s reputation and potential to hire cutting-edge talent. For even if this resolution is voted down by the board, the move is disheartening on many levels. First, of course, to see one of the university’s leading officers propose something so utterly against the spirit of the institution is sad and suspicious. And then, one might have thought Regent Pillen, given his apparent interest in and affection for Nebraska’s university system, had been aware that theories of race and social justice were being discussed here. Surely he knew, indeed, that some of the system’s most decorated, internationally renowned, and external grant-earning faculty did so? If he knew that, why choose this moment to propose such a resolution—and if not, what’s he doing as a Regent? Well, we all know why. Though the 45th presidency might have inured us to it somewhat, to see so craven a use of a position of public trust for personal and political gain must always depress patriots and citizens of the world alike.

The resolution violates the Board of Regents’ own bylaws, which clearly state a commitment to academic freedom, placing its protection in the hands of the Board itself. Section 4.2 of those bylaws declare that the right “to search for truth, to support a position the searcher believes is the truth, and to disagree with others whose intellect reaches a different conclusion,” is “the fiber of America’s greatness. It is, likewise, the strength of a great University, and its preservation is vital.” The very introduction of a measure that would violate those bylaws ought to raise the question of whether Pillen is fit to serve on that body. It certainly bodes ill for how he’d behave as a governor. But again, the bar has been set low in the last few years for elected leadership, and the current governor, in whose hands the funding of the university partly rests, has enthusiastically tweeted in favor of Pillen’s resolution. And any Republican who wins the gubernatorial election will doubtless continue to go after Critical Race Theory like a dog with a bone. So: oppose the letter of the resolution by all means, but the spirit in which it was made is equally dangerous, equally in need of denunciation. Our administration can’t
do that—(what administration could? another depressing thought)—so it demands collective action.

I’m a great-great-grandson of one of the earliest settlers of Nebraska, the homesteader Albert “Pap” Towle of Beatrice. I respect that descent, the hard work it required, and the value that my ancestors—many of them NU alums and donors—placed on education and freedom of inquiry. I have inherited many of their school textbooks, diligently inscribed in the margins during their studies. But I also know that they could only live in this place by virtue of violence done to the people Native to this land, and that they participated in the racist practices of sundown towns. Maybe they weren’t all racists, but enough of them were to make life in Nebraska a lot easier for White people than for everyone else. Jim Pillen’s resolution is another event in this darker history of erasure and silencing—a history that our students must learn about, or else this won’t be a university worthy of that name.

Matt Cohen is professor of English and affiliate faculty in Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the president of UNL’s AAUP chapter.