BY CAROLYN BETENSKY
An article in today’s edition of Inside Higher Ed covered a significant initiative that is picking up steam on campuses across the country. In response to laws passed or proposed by Republican-dominated state legislatures and boards of trustees that ban the teaching of “divisive” materials on race, racism, and gender at state universities and colleges, a national campaign is calling on faculty senates to pass resolutions protecting academic freedom. The African American Policy Forum has been actively fighting educational gag orders aimed at primary and secondary education classrooms, but the group has also formed coalitions with leaders in higher education to combat the silencing of colleagues who teach Critical Race Theory or other “controversial” materials. This initiative seeks to inform and unite faculty, and to embolden them to take a stand on current, serious threats to academic freedom now — before it is too late.
As Colleen Flaherty writes,
More than a dozen faculty senates already have adopted or are considering adopting the template-based resolution, which says that the given senate “resolutely rejects any attempts by bodies external to the faculty to restrict or dictate university curriculum on any matter, including matters related to racial and social justice, and will stand firm against encroachment on faculty authority by the legislature or the Boards of Trustees.”
The template resolution calls on the given institution’s president and provost, by name, to do the same. It also says the given faculty senate stands with K-12 colleagues facing similar challenges with respect to teaching “the truth in U.S. history and civics education.”
Finally, the resolution affirms the “Joint Statement on Efforts to Restrict Education About Racism,” which was published earlier this year by the American Association of University Professors, PEN America, the American Historical Association and the Association of American Colleges & Universities and endorsed by other groups.
The template resolution was written by Valerie Johnson, Endowed Professor of Urban Diplomacy at DePaul University, Emily Houh, Gustavus Henry Wald Professor of the Law and Contracts at the University of Cincinnati, and Jennifer Ruth, professor of film at Portland State University (also a contributing editor of Academe Blog).
