BY Z. W. TAYLOR, PAT SOMERS, AND JOSH CHILDS 

The AAUP outlines a four-pronged definition of academic freedom, although it is not codified by any specific case law or statute. Dozens of educational organizations—including the American Psychological Association, the Association for the Study of Higher Education, and the National Education Association, among many others—have endorsed the definition. The four prongs of the definition originate from both the AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure and from Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter’s 1957 opinion regarding the “four essential freedoms” in the landmark Sweezy v. New Hampshire case. Academic freedom centers around four main points:

• who may teach;
• what may be taught;
• how it shall be taught; and
• who may be admitted to study.

SCOTUS recognized that these points should be viewed as institutional freedoms, not individual freedoms. Therefore, the AAUP defines academic freedom for faculty as consisting of the following main elements:

• Teaching: freedom to discuss all relevant matters in the classroom;
• Research: freedom to explore all avenues of scholarship, research, and creative expression and to publish the results of such work;
• Intramural speech: freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when speaking or writing as participants in the governance of an educational institution; and
• Extramural speech: freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when speaking or writing as citizens.

The recent controversy surrounding the University of Texas at Austin’s administrative decision-making regarding GoKAR! Project (Kids Against Racism) makes for an interesting case study of how higher education institutions respond to threats to institutional and faculty academic freedoms. In essence, a group of researchers at UT Austin earned a $100,000 grant from the Office of the Vice President for Research to facilitate a program (GoKAR!) that teaches white preschoolers about anti-Black racism. The program engages with critical race theory (CRT) as a major guiding framework for the instruction and came under fire for involving CRT. CRT has been a cultural flashpoint for right-leaning politicians to criticize efforts related to antiracist work. Moreover, the Texas legislature recently passed new restrictions on how public-school teachers can discuss America’s persistent history of anti-Black racism and how to engage students on racial and gendered topics. Once the public was made aware of GoKAR!, following targeted outreach to parents of preschool-age children, the political pressure began to escalate.

Mark Perry, a right-leaning professor at the University of Michigan at Flint and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, filed US Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) complaints against GoKAR!, claiming the program discriminates against children of color because only white students were eligible for the educational and subsequent benefits of the instruction. The irony of the complaints is palpable, as historically children of color have been so often denied educational opportunities; for the opponents to suggest that these same children were being denied educational opportunities by an antiracism program seemed contradictory. Yet research has highlighted how white students benefit the most from antiracist educational opportunities. Perhaps most interesting, Justice Frankfurter’s tenet of “who may be admitted to study” begs an interesting discussion in GoKAR!’s context: what types of students deserve and would benefit from antiracist education? Additionally, does the research premise of GoKAR! qualify as teaching under the AAUP principles? GoKAR!’s antiracist curriculum had a robust research design that involved teachers and students, broadly encapsulating what traditionally is thought of as “teaching.” Yet GoKAR! was grant-funded through the University of Texas at Austin and was meant to serve as a broader research project to examine the development and efficacy of intentional education regarding anti-Black racism. Is GoKAR!’s work “research” under the AAUP principles? Or is GoKAR!’s work “intramural speech,” as the program was grant-funded but administered by public educators (UT Austin faculty) and a public institution (UT Austin)?

The decision by UT Austin administration to halt the study because of the OCR complaints raised numerous red flags and criticism of that decision. Faculty members from universities across the country, including at UT Austin, remarked that pausing GoKAR! negatively impacts Institutional Review Board (IRB) approved research and sets a dangerous precedent surrounding antiracism curricula and programmatic development. UT Austin faculty members also criticized UT Austin administration for halting an IRB-approved study out of perceived political pressure from Republican leadership in Texas. In this regard, the decision to develop GoKAR! was met with criticism from the political Right, and its pause was met with criticism from the political Left, all the while bringing into question, “Who may teach, what may be taught, how shall it be taught, and who may be admitted to study?”

The controversy surrounding the GoKAR! study has raised critical questions related to “who may be admitted to study” K–12 contexts and to what extent antiracist studies are protected by university administrations. Had the OCR complaints not been filed because students of color were excluded from GoKAR!, would the program have continued? And should GoKAR! have perhaps recruited both white and students of color to participate in the program and explore how both constituencies react and develop from antiracist education? Of course, the entire point of the program was to provide white students with antiracist education because white people have been, historically, the perpetuators of racist acts, including countless examples from the education sector (such as segregated schools, denial of education, district redlining, and the Tuskegee Study).

Yet educational researchers constantly conduct experiments with racialized control and experiment groups. Given that GoKAR! integrated CRT to educate white students during our current cultural zeitgeist, is the interruption of the program emblematic of American society’s tension surrounding racial inequity and social justice? Perhaps because GoKAR! blurs the lines between teaching, research, and speech, current notions of academic freedom as defined by professional organizations and case law do not adequately pertain to GoKAR!’s aims and scope. If anything, GoKAR!, and the publicity around it, have continued centuries-long discussions of academic freedom. Critically, GoKAR! also highlights the need to assert the importance of academic freedom in examining questions that have an impact on society.

Z. W. Taylor is an assistant director of admissions at Texas State University. Pat Somers is an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Josh Childs is an assistant professor at the University of Texas at Austin.