BY ALAN SINGER

Academic freedom is the most sacred tradition in American universities. Academic freedom generally ensures that “both faculty members and students can engage in intellectual debate without fear of censorship or retaliation” and “establishes a faculty member’s right to remain true to his or her pedagogical philosophy and intellectual commitments.” Although K–12 teachers in the United States benefit from academic freedom protections, they are subject to increasing restrictions.

We are now witnessing attempts to limit academic freedom at every level of education by red-state legislatures. Legal restrictions on what can be said and what can be taught, even if they do not threaten someone’s job, are acts of intimidation and silencing. In our Journal of Academic Freedom article, “Teaching about Contemporary Controversies in High Schools and in University Teacher Education Programs,” Chris Dier, Pablo Muriel, Adeola Tella-Williams, Cynthia Vitere, and I write about the challenges of teaching in this environment.

Some conservative commentators have asserted that academic freedom is at risk because of actions by people on the political Left who want to institutionalize political correctness and ban certain speech on campuses. This is a false equivalency used to justify censorship by the political Right. Nowhere in the United States does the much maligned “woke Left” control local or state governments or universities.

According to a UCLA study released in January 2022, almost eighteen million children attend public schools in states or school districts that ban teaching about race, racism, gender, and “critical race theory” (CRT). By March 2022, at least thirty-five states had passed or were considering anti-CRT legislation and restrictions on classroom teaching.

Recently, Florida passed legislation that Governor Ron DeSantis claims gives “businesses, employees, children, and families tools to stand up against . . . woke indoctrination.” According to a former Florida commissioner of education, the law protects students from “dangerous concepts” like CRT and respect for diversity, while the current education commissioner argues that federal diversity and equity rules are “not-binding” in Florida. In defense of Florida’s  “Parental Rights in Education” bill, DeSantis proclaimed that teachers are instructed to tell young children to adhere to their gender identity assigned at birth. To intimidate university professors, the state legislature also mandated that students complete an email questionnaire where they were asked whether they “felt intimidated to share my ideas or political opinions because they were different from those of my professors.”

In 2016 the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (now the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) noted, “One worrisome trend undermining open discourse in the academy is the increased push by some students and faculty to ‘disinvite speakers with whom they disagree from campus appearances.’” Many of the protests from the Left pressing universities to cancel speaking engagements were against right-wing provocateurs like Ben Shapiro, Ann Coulter, and Milo Yiannopoulos, who were invited to campus not for an exchange of ideas but by right-wing groups who wanted to denounce the Left for violating free speech. Canceling invitations from campus groups to speakers like these does not violate anyone’s freedom of speech or ability to learn. Instead, it sends the message that speakers must support their positions with evidence and engage in respectful dialogue if they want to appear on campus.

In recent commencement speeches, Barack Obama, Michael Bloomberg, and Clarence Thomas each warned against political correctness limiting free speech. Obama was particularly disturbed that Rutgers University canceled Condoleezza Rice’s planned 2014 commencement address. Speaking in 2016, Obama told graduating students that “the notion that this community or this country would be better served by not hearing a former secretary of state or not hearing what she had to say—I believe that’s misguided. I don’t think that’s how democracy works best, when we’re not even willing to listen to each other.”

Since leaving the Bush administration, where she shared responsibility for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Rice has made herself available as a speaker but not subjected herself to tough questioning that would require her to defend her record. In venues where she faces little criticism, Rice justifies Bush administration policies. In her 2010 memoir, she defended Bush’s war policies, and in a 2013 video she justified the use of torture against captives. In the spirit of respectful dialogue discussed above, I don’t believe Rice should be invited to speak on any college campus until she is willing to answer student and faculty questions and defend her dubious foreign policy decisions. This is not suppression of her free speech, as she has access to many venues in which to share her views, but a defense of open dialogue against powerful political operators.

Many countries with democratic traditions distinguish between free speech and hate speech, with penalties for hate speech ranging from fines to imprisonment. Hate speech is defined as encouraging a visceral reaction against a person or group, discrimination, or even violence because of their race, religion, ethnicity, immigration status, sex, or sexual orientation— something that Governor DeSantis and former president Donald Trump encourage on a regular basis through their speech and actions. The United States does not have anti–hate speech laws, and the Supreme Court has ruled in multiple cases, including Snyder v. Phelps, that restrictions on hate speech violate the First Amendment.

I am a staunch supporter of academic freedom. It has protected me as a high school teacher and as a college professor, but I don’t interpret it to mean that incendiary language or hate speech should be tolerated or that everyone should be guaranteed a platform to spout whatever they want without being subject to challenge. As a teacher, I know that opening myself up to challenges in class takes discussion in unplanned directions, but these discussions have often been the most valuable ones for my students. I tell students that they do not have to agree with me to do well in class—in fact, I often do not agree with me—and I insist on some ground rules. Everyone must have an opportunity to speak, although people must support their statements with evidence, and classroom discussions must be conducted in a respectful manner. That’s why I begin the semester by playing two recordings by my favorite educational philosopher, Aretha Franklin: R-E-S-P-E-C-T and THINK.

Alan Singer is a professor of social studies education at Hofstra University.

Read the complete volume of the 2022 Journal of Academic Freedom here.