The death of academic freedom

benfell

See updates through March 5, 2022, at end of post.

After intense blowback, the University of Florida has now acquiesced. Three political science professors may now, after all, testify as expert witnesses, and be compensated for their testimony, against Florida’s efforts to limit voter access.[1] The university had previously forbidden the testimony citing a conflict of interest with the university as a state actor.[2]

The professors are suing anyway, alleging that the University’s policy, which enabled the prohibition on their testimony in the first place, has not been changed and infringes academic freedom. Apparently, other professors had also been affected and I don’t know how you sensibly argue that the University wasn’t simply pandering to Florida Republicans who control the state government and, thus, a significant part of University funding.[3]

This problem is inherent to political control of academic pursestrings and, as we see with the cases of Steven Salaita, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and Cornel West,[4] given epistemological politicization and polarization, the battles may continue but the war is almost certainly lost. Academic freedom has already been chilled and will surely perish.

Update, November 9, 2021: Text originally published as an update here has been moved to a new blog post entitled, “The inexcusable, insufferable idiots coming to Austin.”

Update, February 11, 2022: A bill in the Florida legislature would require universities and colleges to change accreditors annually which, given the length of time required to win accreditation would be all but impossible,[5] and

states that higher education institutions may take legal action against their accreditors if they are “negatively impacted by retaliatory action” from that accreditor. It’s unclear exactly what actions would be considered retaliatory under the bill.[6]

This is likely a response[7] to the ruckus over the University of Florida attempting to restrain political science professors from testifying against the state on voting rights. In the ensuing uproar, the university backed down, the professors sued anyway, and a judge was blistering in ruling against the university. I hadn’t actually heard, but cannot be surprised, that the university’s regional accreditor also sent a letter of inquiry regarding the matter to the university, as any accreditor would be required to do.[8] This very much appears to be a desperate effort to assert political control over universities and academic freedom.

Accreditors routinely audit programs and schools at periodic intervals and in my time in school, I saw such audits a couple times. Even these drag on for years with massive outreach to students and faculty. Accreditation is what permits a university’s students to access federal student aid, especially student loans, which is what nearly all universities actually rely upon to pay skyrocketing tuitions and fees.[9] So unless Florida intends to actually fund higher education, the bill would effectively make institutions of higher education in the state untenable.

Update, March 5, 2022: What I see increasingly is that somehow, some way—I haven’t the first idea how—knowledge work must be independent of political and financial dependence. Lies kill. They kill with the pandemic. They kill in Ukraine. They are already leading to mass extinctions with climate change. Where they do not kill, they threaten to kill on a massive scale in a civil war. We see the mortal threat to academic freedom.[10] Governments must not control “truth,” but neither may capitalists. Our failure to solve this problem will be our ruin.

  1. [1]Lindsay Ellis, “After Scathing Criticism, U. of Florida Will Let Professors Testify Against the State,” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 5, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/after-scathing-criticism-u-of-florida-will-let-professors-testify-against-the-state; Colleen Flaherty, “Just the End of the Beginning,” Inside Higher Ed, November 8, 2021, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/11/08/uf-says-professors-can-be-paid-experts-theyre-suing-anyway↩
  2. [2]Andrew Jeong, “University of Florida bars faculty from testifying in voting rights lawsuit against DeSantis administration,” Washington Post, October 30, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/30/florida-voting-rights-desantis-lawsuit/↩
  3. [3]Lindsay Ellis, “After Scathing Criticism, U. of Florida Will Let Professors Testify Against the State,” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 5, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/after-scathing-criticism-u-of-florida-will-let-professors-testify-against-the-state; Colleen Flaherty, “Just the End of the Beginning,” Inside Higher Ed, November 8, 2021, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/11/08/uf-says-professors-can-be-paid-experts-theyre-suing-anyway↩
  4. [4]Jon Allsop, “On NHJ, UNC, and CRT,” Columbia Journalism Review, June 25, 2021, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/nikole_hannah_jones_unc_tenure.php; Timothy Bella, “Cornel West says in resignation letter over tenure dispute that Harvard is in ‘decline and decay,’” Washington Post, July 13, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/07/13/cornel-west-harvard-tenure-resignation/; Brendan Cantwell, “The Culture War Has Come for Higher Ed,” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 12, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-culture-war-has-come-for-higher-ed; Len Gutkin, “Nikole Hannah-Jones and the Eclipse of Faculty Autonomy; the CDC and Paranoia,” Chronicle of Higher Education, May 24, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/chronicle-review/2021-05-24; Scott Jaschik, “Another Lost Job for Salaita,” Inside Higher Ed, April 14, 2016, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/04/14/reports-circulate-american-beirut-has-blocked-permanent-appointment; Lauren Lumpkin and Nick Anderson, “Nikole Hannah-Jones to join Howard faculty after UNC tenure controversy,” Washington Post, July 6, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/07/06/howard-nikole-hannah-jones-tanehisi-coates/; Peter Schmidt, “U. of Illinois Board’s Denial of Job to Salaita Is Unlikely to Quell Controversy,” Chronicle of Higher Education, September 11, 2014, https://www.chronicle.com/article/u-of-illinois-boards-denial-of-job-to-salaita-is-unlikely-to-quell-controversy/; Jack Stripling, “‘What the Hell Happened?,’” Chronicle of Higher Education, June 11, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/what-the-hell-happened; Jack Stripling, “‘Look Us in the Eye,’” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 1, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/look-us-in-the-eye; Tahirah Walker, “Higher education and I are going through a break-up, a conscious uncoupling, a disentanglement,” Public Source, July 8, 2021, https://www.publicsource.org/higher-education-pittsburgh-perspective/; Megan Zahneis, “His University Celebrated His Success. Then It Fired Him,” Chronicle of Higher Education, December 17, 2020, https://www.chronicle.com/article/his-university-celebrated-his-success-then-it-fired-him; Megan Zahneis, “Cornel West’s Resignation Letter Cites ‘Decline and Decay’ at Harvard Divinity School,” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 13, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/cornel-wests-resignation-letter-cites-decline-and-decay-at-harvard-divinity-school; Megan Zahneis, “Scholar Who Claimed He Was Fired for Speaking Out Settles With U. of Mississippi,” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 29, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/scholar-who-claimed-he-was-fired-for-speaking-out-settles-with-u-of-mississippi; Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz, “American U. of Beirut Denies That It Blocked Center’s Hiring of Salaita,” Chronicle of Higher Education, April 14, 2016, http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/american-u-of-beirut-denies-that-it-blocked-centers-hiring-of-salaita/110386↩
  5. [5]Emma Whitford, “Florida Could Make Switching Accreditors Mandatory,” Inside Higher Ed, February 11, 2022, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/11/florida-bill-would-require-colleges-change-accreditors↩
  6. [6]Emma Whitford, “Florida Could Make Switching Accreditors Mandatory,” Inside Higher Ed, February 11, 2022, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/11/florida-bill-would-require-colleges-change-accreditors↩
  7. [7]Emma Whitford, “Florida Could Make Switching Accreditors Mandatory,” Inside Higher Ed, February 11, 2022, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/11/florida-bill-would-require-colleges-change-accreditors↩
  8. [8]Lindsay Ellis, “After Scathing Criticism, U. of Florida Will Let Professors Testify Against the State,” Chronicle of Higher Education, November 5, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/after-scathing-criticism-u-of-florida-will-let-professors-testify-against-the-state; Andrew Jeong, “University of Florida bars faculty from testifying in voting rights lawsuit against DeSantis administration,” Washington Post, October 30, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/10/30/florida-voting-rights-desantis-lawsuit/; Jack Stripling, “Blasting U. of Florida, Judge Says Professors’ Testimony Can’t Be Blocked,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 21, 2022, https://www.chronicle.com/article/blasting-u-of-florida-judge-says-professors-testimony-cant-be-blocked; Emma Whitford, “Florida Could Make Switching Accreditors Mandatory,” Inside Higher Ed, February 11, 2022, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/02/11/florida-bill-would-require-colleges-change-accreditors↩
  9. [9]Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, “Fixing the Student-Debt Crisis Isn’t Enough,” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 16, 2021, https://www.chronicle.com/article/fixing-the-student-debt-crisis-isnt-enough↩
  10. [10]David Benfell, “The death of academic freedom,” Not Housebroken, February 11, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/11/08/the-death-of-academic-freedom/↩