“Academic Freedom and the Politics of the University” by Joan Wallach Scott

The article is here; the introduction:

The United States finds itself in a difficult moment: fundamental trust in the institutions of democracy has been eroded, constitutional protections have been undermined by the right-wing majority of the Supreme Court, and reason is no obstacle to the libidinism enabled by the former President Donald Trump. As the paranoia, accusations, retaliation and hate speech rampant online and translate into dangerous, sometimes deadly, “real life” activism, education in general and the university in particular have come under attack.

The attack on education itself is not new – right-wing think tanks and politicians have been at it for decades. But this moment seems somehow more dangerous, as Republican lawmakers and militant activists use their power to send censors directly into classrooms and libraries and promise conservative parents that they will take back control of their children to combat the specter of the to resist “woke” indoctrination.

In one of the reversals of meaning so cleverly practiced by the right, censorship is carried out in the name of free speech and/or academic freedom. The terms themselves seem to have lost their validity: once weapons of the weak, they have now been confiscated by the powerful as legal instruments that, in their eyes, censor unacceptable criticism – of state policy, of inequality, of injustice – in the name of freedom.

And perhaps most hypocritically, the censors claim they are purging the university of “politics.” The startling result is increased politicization in the name of purging “politics.” The two are not the same. Politics (as I would like to use the term) means disputes about meaning and power, the results of which are not predetermined; Those who politicize – or rather, rely on partisanship – know in advance what results they want to achieve, what enemies they want to defeat. Theoretically, politics is at the center of the free research associated with democratic education; partisanship is its antithesis. In fact, the relationship between the two is never as simple as this contrast suggests.

The line between politics and partisanship has been difficult, if not impossible, to maintain, as demonstrated by more than a century of cases examined by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Critical scholarship that challenged the interests of businessmen and/or politicians, however rigorous and disciplined, was inevitably met with (partisan) accusations that it was unacceptably “political”; As a result, their supporters were often dismissed. Throughout its long history, the AAUP has sought to strengthen the boundary between politics and partisanship through conceptual and practical tools: disciplinary certification of the “competence” of scientists; Insistence on the objectivity or neutrality of “scientific” work; term of office; faculty leadership; “Responsibility”; and the designation of “extraordinary speech” as a guarantee of protecting academic freedom.

There is now a wealth of material (policy statements, best practice guides, reports) that serves to codify the meaning of this freedom and is regularly updated in the Association’s policies Red book. It provides important ammunition for the fight to protect democratic education from its censors, although the need to continually refine and update the protocols suggests the ongoing (seemingly eternal) nature of the struggle.

Despite changing historical contexts, the boundary between politics and partisanship has never been secured. This is because it is a tension inherent in knowledge production that cannot be resolved by legislation, administrative authority or academic expertise. Academic freedom mediates the tension but does not resolve it, because when knowledge production is critical of prevailing norms (whether in the natural sciences, social sciences or humanities), it attracts the wrath of those norms’ defenders who undermine its integrity and Integrity want to defend their truth. The tension between politics and partisanship is the state (or fate) of democratic higher education in America, a state of uncertainty (political theorist Claude Lefort links uncertainty with democracy) that requires the kind of ongoing critical engagement—interpretive nuance, attention to complexity , philosophical reflection, openness to change – this should be the goal of every university education.