BY ALAN SINGER

In times of crisis, academics must be public intellectuals. Why invest our lives in becoming experts in history, society, policy, science, or any other field of study and then remain isolated in an academic cocoon for safety or career advancement? The consequences of silence for our profession and our society are too great.

I blog regularly and use my university email to circulate my writing  through a listserv that the university’s tech department helped me construct. When challenged about my use of the university email system, I insist that my blogs and articles are part of my service to the profession and the broader community. The only condition that the university has requested, a condition that I agreed to, is that my email messages include “Blogs, tweets, essays, interviews, and e-blasts present my views and not those of the university. To unsubscribe, reply UNSUBSCRIBE in subject.” I make a similar statement when I testify at public hearings or speak at community events.

Former AAUP president Cary Nelson argued that while “academic freedom protects your right to say what you want,” it does not “protect you from professional consequences for doing so.”  Nelson is right; when you exercise academic freedom, especially as a public intellectual, there are consequences, consequences that I accept.

Recent events have made it clear that academic freedom in the classroom is not safe if the public role of academics is unsafe. During the summer, while most faculty and students were off campus, university administrators across the country enacted new regulations to silence dissent on campus, often without any faculty input. In Indiana, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing the university over newly imposed time restrictions on political expression. The ACLU suit argues that they prohibit people from talking about politics to a friend or standing silently with a sign during restricted times. I wonder if they will make students and faculty remove shirts with unacceptable messages.

The situation is worse in other states. In Florida’s public universities, students are encouraged to rat out teachers for making statements a student considers divisive or inappropriate to the class. Tenured faculty are reviewed to enforce what and how they teach. Legal scholars are told that as public employees there are restrictions on where they can speak and what they can say, including at public hearings.

At the University of Virginia, student-led tours for incoming freshman were suspended because a right-wing alumni group accused the tours of alienating prospective students by presenting a “woke version” of the university’s history, including the fact that Thomas Jefferson, the university’s founder, was a slaveholder. Right-wing trustees appointed by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin now hold thirteen of seventeen seats on the university’s board of visitors, giving them the power to redirect the university and shape the faculty.

Wealthy donors and powerful members of boards of trustees across the country are trying to silence discussion over Israel’s actions in Gaza and illegal occupation of the West Bank that international bodies have labeled war crimes against Palestinians and genocide. Administrators have been forced to resign and students and faculty are intimidated by blacklists intended to block new employment.

At the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, the appointment of Israeli historian Raz Segal as faculty director of its Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies was rescinded because of pressure from a pro-Israel group that objected to his description of Israel as an apartheid and settler-colonial state guilty of genocide in its assault on Gaza. Groups like the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakota equate criticism of Israeli policy with antisemitism. In the last congressional primary cycle, two progressive representatives were defeated in part because of tens of millions of dollars spent by AIPAC in support of their opponents.

The AAUP plays a crucial role in defending both academic freedom and academics as public intellectuals. It condemns newly revised administrative policies designed to prevent peaceful campus protests by students, faculty, and allies and accuses administrators of imposing “severe limits on speech and assembly that discourage or shut down freedom of expression” that “undermine the academic freedom and freedom of speech and expression that are fundamental to higher education.” The AAUP denounces policies that “curtail the rights of faculty, who are entitled to freedom from institutional censorship or discipline when speaking or writing as citizens. Institutions of higher learning should aim to foster an environment in which faculty, graduate employees, students, and other members of the campus community are free to discuss and debate difficult topics, inside and outside the classroom.”

Sadly, because of the power of money in American politics and in higher education, in a very real sense, only academics as public intellectuals remain in a position to respond to concerted silencing. But know when you speak, whether in the classroom or in a public forum, there will be consequences.

Alan Singer is a historian and teacher educator at Hofstra University.