Academic Freedom in the Post-9/11 Era

Academic Freedom in the Post-9/11 Era
Author: E. Carvalho
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 516
Release: 2010-11-14
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0230117295

Academic freedom has been a principle that undergirds the university since 1915. Beyond this, it also protects a spirit of free inquiry essential to a democratic society. But in the post-9/11 present, the basic principles of academic freedom have been deeply challenged. There have been many startling instances where the rhetoric of national security and terror, corporate interests, and privatization have cast a pall over the terrain of academic freedom. In the post-9/11 university, professors face job loss or tenure denial for speaking against state power, while their students pay more tuition and fall deeper in debt. This timely collection features an impressive assembly of the nation s leading intellectuals, addressing some of the most urgent issues facing higher education in the United States today. Spanning a wide array of disciplinary fields, Academic Freedom in the Post-9/11 Era seeks to intervene on the economic and political crises that are compromising the future of our educational institutions.

Academic Freedom After September 11

Academic Freedom After September 11
Author: Beshara Doumani
Publisher:
Total Pages: 334
Release: 2006
Genre: Education
ISBN:

Essays on the challenges to academic freedom posed by post-9/11 political interventions and the growing commercialization of knowledge. Are the attacks on academic freedom after 9/11 a passing storm, or do they represent a structural shift that undermines one of the pillars of democratic societies? This book brings together some of this nation's leading scholars to analyze the challenges to academic freedom posed by post-9/11 political interventions and the market-driven commercialization of knowledge, examining these issues in light of the major transformations in the system of higher education since the Second World War, including conflicting interpretations of what constitutes academic freedom. Following an analysis of the historical significance of the post-9/11 threats to academic freedom, three strongly argued and not easily reconcilable essays by Robert Post, Judith Butler, and Philippa Strum discuss what visions of academic freedom can be defended and the best strategies for doing so. Three case studies--Kathleen J. Frydl on the loyalty-oath and free-speech controversies at the University of California, Amy Newhall on the tortured relationship between universities and the government as seen in language acquisition programs, and Joel Beinin on the policing of thought in the academy in relation to the Middle East--deepen our understanding of what is at stake. In clear and powerful prose, these essays provide a solid platform for informed classroom and public discussions on the philosophical foundations, institutional practices, and political dimensions of academic freedom on the threshold of the twenty-first century.

Academic Freedom at the Dawn of a New Century

Academic Freedom at the Dawn of a New Century
Author: Evan Gerstmann
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2006
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780804754446

This is a provocative examination of the current state of academic freedom in the United States and around the world.

Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education

Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education
Author: Reshmi Dutt-Ballerstadt
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2021-05-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1000389510

Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education: Faculty on the Margins represents a multidisciplinary approach, deploying different theoretical, methodological, sociological, political, and creative perspectives to articulate the stakes of civility for marginalized faculty within the landscape of higher education. How has the discourse on civility and free speech within academia become a systemic and oppressive form of silencing, suppressing, or eradicating marginal voices? What are some overt and covert ways in which institutions are using the logic of civility to control faculty uprising against the increasingly corporate-controlled landscape of higher education? This collection of essays examines the continuum between the post-9/11 and the post-Trump era backlashes. It details the organized retaliations against those in academia whose views and scholarships articulate their discontents against the U.S.-led "War on Terror." It contests the rise of White supremacy, Trump’s Muslim ban, anti-immigrant and racist government policies and rhetoric, and those who support the Boycott and Divestment Sanctions movements within the corporatized universities. All of these new and original essays shed light and further the debate on the various modes of civility that have become politicized within the U.S. academy. It will have a broad appeal to a cross section of national and international academics, activist scholars, social justice educators and researchers in the field of higher education.

Academic Freedom in the Wired World

Academic Freedom in the Wired World
Author: Robert O'Neil
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2009-07-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780674033726

In this passionately argued overview, a longtime activist-scholar takes readers through the changing landscape of academic freedom. From the aftermath of September 11th to the new frontier of blogging, Robert O'Neil examines the tension between institutional and individual interests. Many cases boil down to a hotly contested question: who has the right to decide what is taught in the classroom? O'Neil shows how courts increasingly restrict professorial judgment, and how the feeble protection of what is posted on the Internet and written in email makes academics more vulnerable than ever. Even more provocatively, O'Neil argues, the newest threats to academic freedom come not from government, but from the private sector. Corporations increasingly sponsor and control university-based research, while self-appointed watchdogs systematically harass individual teachers on websites and blogs. Most troubling, these threats to academic freedom are nearly immune from legal recourse. Insisting that new concepts of academic freedom, and new strategies for maintaining it are needed, O'Neil urges academics to work together--and across rigid and simplistic divisions between left and right.

Cold Breezes and Idiot Winds

Cold Breezes and Idiot Winds
Author: Valerie Scatamburlo d'Annibale
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2011-11-19
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9460914098

After 9/11, rightists capitalized on an atmosphere of fear and confusion to resuscitate the “culture wars” of the 1990s and once again targeted the academy. Using tactics reminiscent of the McCarthy era, religious firebrands, militant neoconservatives, and free market fundamentalists engaged in a concerted effort to silence voices critical of the ‘war on terror’ and liken legitimate dissent to treason. Brandishing a discourse of “patriotic correctness” (PC) that was informed by American ‘exceptionalism,’ Christian nationalism, anti-intellectualism, and virulent anti-liberalism, this coalition portrayed the professoriate as a dangerous cabal seeking the demise of ‘Western civilization.’ In Cold Breezes and Idiot Winds, Scatamburlo-D’Annibale explains why the most recent assault on academe must be understood in relation to the right’s broader offensive against liberalism. For decades, conservatives have worked diligently to construct a network of foundations, think tanks, and campus organizations dedicated to demonizing progressive thought, the legacy of the New Deal era, and the democratic social reforms of the 1960s. The author provides a detailed examination of this ideological infrastructure and how it advanced the agenda of PC post-9/11. She explores how the campaign for PC was aided and abetted by a right-wing media apparatus, how it continues to threaten academic freedom on campuses, and how it is currently infecting the larger body politic and contributing to the increased toxicity of the nation’s public dialogue. While purveyors of PC often invoke “culture war” rhetoric, Scatamburlo-D’Annibale adroitly reveals that their ultimate aim is to protect corporate power from any form of democratic accountability.

For the Common Good

For the Common Good
Author: Matthew W. Finkin
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2009-04-21
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0300143540

This book offers a concise explanation of the history and meaning of American academic freedom, and it attempts to intervene in contemporary debates by clarifying the fundamental functions and purposes of academic freedom in America.--From publisher description.

Understanding Academic Freedom

Understanding Academic Freedom
Author: Henry Reichman
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2021-10-05
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1421442167

Part of the acclaimed Higher Ed Leadership Essentials series, this book surveys academic freedom's history and its application in today's universities. Academic freedom is once again at the epicenter of the crisis in higher education. A community college instructor in Iowa is pressured to resign after his pro-antifa social media comments garner vicious harassment that administrators find threatening to campus safety. A tenured biology professor at a college on Long Island is threatened with dismissal because she allegedly grades students too strictly. And in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a conservative activist calls on his followers to take advantage of online classes to send "any and all videos of blatant indoctrination" to his organization so that it might expose and blacklist "leftist professors." These incidents from the 2019–20 academic year represent only the tip of the iceberg. Academic freedom, long heralded as a core value of American higher education, may now be in as much danger as at any time the 1950s. But what is "academic freedom"? A value upheld for one's supporters (but not one's opponents) when discussing a polarizing controversy? Or a narrow claim of privilege by a professorial elite, immune from public accountability? In this concise and compelling book, Henry Reichman, who chaired the American Association of University Professors' Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure for nearly a decade, mounts a rigorous defense of academic freedom and its principal means of protection: the system of academic tenure. Probing academic freedom's role in multiple contexts, Reichman draws on a wealth of historical and contemporary examples to offer the first comprehensive introduction to the concept in all its manifestations. Elucidating its sometimes complicated meanings, Reichman argues that academic freedom—like its cousin, freedom of speech—cannot easily be defined but, instead, emerges from the contextual application of guiding principles developed and modified over time. He also explores why the rise of contingent faculty employment represents the gravest current threat to academic freedom; reveals how academic freedom is complicated by both fiercely polarized campus environments and the emergence of social media that extend speech beyond the lecture halls of the academy; and touches on the rights of students in and out of class, including treatment of student protest movements.

Written/Unwritten

Written/Unwritten
Author: Patricia A. Matthew
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2016-10-03
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1469627728

The academy may claim to seek and value diversity in its professoriate, but reports from faculty of color around the country make clear that departments and administrators discriminate in ways that range from unintentional to malignant. Stories abound of scholars--despite impressive records of publication, excellent teaching evaluations, and exemplary service to their universities--struggling on the tenure track. These stories, however, are rarely shared for public consumption. Written/Unwritten reveals that faculty of color often face two sets of rules when applying for reappointment, tenure, and promotion: those made explicit in handbooks and faculty orientations or determined by union contracts and those that operate beneath the surface. It is this second, unwritten set of rules that disproportionally affects faculty who are hired to "diversify" academic departments and then expected to meet ever-shifting requirements set by tenured colleagues and administrators. Patricia A. Matthew and her contributors reveal how these implicit processes undermine the quality of research and teaching in American colleges and universities. They also show what is possible when universities persist in their efforts to create a diverse and more equitable professorate. These narratives hold the academy accountable while providing a pragmatic view about how it might improve itself and how that improvement can extend to academic culture at large. The contributors and interviewees are Ariana E. Alexander, Marlon M. Bailey, Houston A. Baker Jr., Dionne Bensonsmith, Leslie Bow, Angie Chabram, Andreana Clay, Jane Chin Davidson, April L. Few-Demo, Eric Anthony Grollman, Carmen V. Harris, Rashida L. Harrison, Ayanna Jackson-Fowler, Roshanak Kheshti, Patricia A. Matthew, Fred Piercy, Deepa S. Reddy, Lisa Sanchez Gonzalez, Wilson Santos, Sarita Echavez See, Andrew J. Stremmel, Cheryl A. Wall, E. Frances White, Jennifer D. Williams, and Doctoral Candidate X.