Academic Freedom Alliance Statement on Divisive Concepts Policies

Legislative restrictions on ideas and viewpoints that can be advocated in the classroom undermine free inquiry

The Academic Freedom Alliance has issued a new guidance statement. It calls for an end to policies designed to restrict the advocacy or discussion of "divisive concepts" in university classrooms.

President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13950 on September 22, 2020, which prohibited federal workplace training programs that taught, advocated, or promoted any "divisive concepts." Since then, many proposals have been made in the states similarly to exclude divisive concepts, or what has sometimes been characterized as "critical race theory," in government workplace training and in public schools. More recently, such bans have also been contemplated for state colleges and universities. The most prominent of these was adopted by the Florida legislature in the "Stop W.O.K.E. Act" in 2022. The enforcement of that statute has now been enjoined as unconstitutional by a federal district court. I have discussed the problem with such legislation at some length.

From the statement:

We should be particularly wary of public officials imposing limitations on what ideas can be discussed inside the university. The temptation to abuse such a power in order to suppress ideas that incumbent politicians or transient majorities find threatening to their interests and sensibilities is far too great. Conservatives have rightly warned that campus speech codes are used to silence points of view that some members of the campus community did not like. Campus speech codes imposed by legislators or trustees should spark the same concern, even if the targeted speech is different. Repugnant ideas on a college campus should be challenged through criticism and debate, not through the tools of censorship.

. . .

We should also worry about the precedent that such divisive concepts bans set for the future. If a legislature may ban students from hearing someone espouse the view that individuals should receive adverse treatment on the basis of their race or sex in order to advance equity goals or that ideas of merit can be oppressive, they could equally ban any number of other controversial social, political, philosophical, or scientific concepts from the university campus. A future legislature could just as well ban anyone on a state university campus from espousing the view that human life begins at conception or that mandatory vaccination policies are an affront to individual liberty or that free enterprise has been an engine of human progress. We protect a realm of free inquiry by insisting that university campuses should enjoy some degree of insulation from the political passions of the moment. We should not have to hope that enlightened politicians will tolerate the good kinds of ideas and suppress only the bad ones. We should leave the winnowing of good from bad ideas to the process of scholarly investigation and disputation and free and open classroom debate.

Read the whole thing here.

Comments

[Social Justice is neither]

So nothing but more dishonesty from a leftist hack. It is good to see you openly advocating for racism, now if only you'd phrase your hatred honestly and not hide behind twisted euphemisms we might be able to have a real dialogue (though that appears the last thing your ilk wants)

[David Nieporent]

How fucking stupid are you?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Which is more impressive at this blog -- the quality of the contributions of the Conspirators, or the quality of the comments from this blog's conservative fans?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

I hope you issued similar statements by the thousand for all the woke restrictions on diversity, especially the DEI statements seemingly from every outraged faculty and student group.

On the other hand, if you really do have a 2.5 year backlog to get through ... well, no, woke anti-diversity was already a thing long before September 22, 2020.

[Randal]

Let me know when "the left" passes a law censoring classroom discussions about diversity.

Even your whataboutism is limp.

[KaDaSha]

Thank you!

[The Margrave of Azilia]

They confine themselves to universities, not officially supporting the right to teach “divisive concepts” – a euphemism for racist, anti-American and (which comes to the same thing) anti-meritocratic propaganda at the workplace, and the elementary and high school level of public schools.

We entertain the fiction that by the time they get to university, students are more mature and capable of handling this sort of propaganda.

So let’s leave that fiction in place and let all sort of propaganda be taught at universities.

But at the workplace and elementary/secondary public school level, official propaganda in favor of racism can be deemed an illegal hostile environment, just as surely as if a white supervisor constantly bombards black employees with insulting epithets, questions their intelligence, etc. Legislatures which ban racist teaching by employers and schools are, I think, simply passing declaratory or prophylactic legislation, keeping institutions out of the illegal zone.

[Ed Grinberg]

Here's what I'd do:
1. Shut down all public schools / colleges / universities.
2. Let private educational (and other) institutions teach / discuss whatever they want. If the students / employees don't like it, they can look for a school / employer that better suits their needs / preferences. And no one's tax money is getting used to indoctrinate people into an ideology abhorrent to him / her.

[bernard11]

Is the objective here for everyone to be as ignorant as you are?

[Lee Moore]

We should leave the winnowing of good from bad ideas to the process of scholarly investigation and disputation and free and open classroom debate.

And how do you expect this to happen in practice ? This is like hoping for free and open debate in the Central Committee of the CPSU.

It is the classroom teachers who set the subjects for discussion. What they do not choose for discussion is "off topic" and so closed down. In practice, even on selected topics, they may also shut off viewpoints they do not approve. Students who do not wish to approve the party line may be disciplined for offenses against DEI. Besides which the students have to have a lot of cojones to depart from the party line in the first place. Much easier to be a sheep.

Classroom teachers who are happy to have a fully open discussion may face complaints from woke students, thereby finding themselves tied up in disciplinary enquiries. And the enquiries are conducted by people who do not at all approve the idea of open discussion. With no due process.

It is as if you have been asleep for a hundred years. What you need is a Prince to come by and wake you up. Let us hope he is prettier than Ron DeSantis.

[Randal]

And your solution is government censorship? Pathetic.

[Lee Moore]

Er, these are government institutions. All restrictions on free debate in state universities - whether they are laws, or the university's policies as to what is taught, who is hired, and how tuition is to be conducted, the university's DEI, other disciplinary and "hate speech policies, all the way down to the individual Professor circumscribing classroom discussion to keep it "on topic" and "respectful" - they are all government censorship.

The question is - which government officials are to exercise these powers ? Concerning yourself only with restrictions at the top level - laws - and happily ignoring all the rest - simply indicates that you are insincere, or to be as generous as I can - clueless.

[Randal]

Bullshit. Individual professors are beneficiaries of academic freedom. They're the ones being censored, not the ones censoring.

Anyway, a bad, close-minded professor is just one bad, close-minded professor. At a higher level, a university that doesn't uphold its commitment to academic freedom is a shame and should be held to account. But the way to do that is *not* by implementing the censorship at an even higher level, in law. That's ridiculously stupid.

This post is about the dangers of state censorship. You're pointing to low-level free speech problems among university staff and using that to justify state censorship by saying well, it's already happening anyway, might as well formalize it in law with the contours that I prefer. That is a pathetically stupid line of reasoning.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The government is entitled to form its own viewpoint at promulgate it at its institutions.

If teachers want academic freedom, they can teach at private schools that offer academic freedom.

[Randal]

It's so easy to get you right wingers on record supporting big government censorship as long as it's censoring to your tastes. What unprincipled jerks. You can't win in the marketplace of ideas, so you'll have your ideas imposed by law. Authoritarian assholes, really.

[bernard11]

It’s so easy to get you right wingers on record supporting big government censorship

Right.

What a bunch of fucking clowns. If some students shout down a conservative speaker they are ready to take up arms in defense of free expression. But when the legislature, or the governor, shiuts off discussion of entire areas they are all for it.

DeSantis, possibly the most active censor in the country, draws praise.

[David Nieporent]

I think you're making a category error. If it's government speech, then it's not "censorship" at all. I know Garcetti said that maybe it doesn't apply to academics, but it's not clear why, constitutionally, it wouldn't. (As a matter of policy, it might make sense to treat a teacher differently than a DMV clerk. But the 1A makes no such distinction.)

[Randal]

Even aside from Garcetti, not all speech by government employees is government speech. And if your beef is with the word "censorship," the contours of the 1A are hardly important.

Definitionally, if a person would otherwise be free to make a statement, but a law prohibits that statement from being made on the basis of its content, that's government censorship. It doesn't matter if they're a government employee, a student, the President, or the media.

Your mistake is assuming that all government censorship is evil, so sensible policies can't be censorship. It's often evil, so we should be very skeptical of it (as here), but it isn't always. Libel and defamation are censored, obscenity is censored in some contexts, and yes, the voices of government agents are often censored in various ways. It's still censorship, even when it's called for.

[David Nieporent]

Even aside from Garcetti, not all speech by government employees is government speech.

Of course not. But all speech by government employees pursuant to their official responsibilities is.

[Randal]

So, do you think all speech by a professor to a student is pursuant to the professor's official responsibilities?

If so, that's the sort of special situation where an alternate rule like Garcetti is appropriate.

If not, then non-government speech is implicated by the sort of censorship contemplated by this post.

[David Nieporent]

So, do you think all speech by a professor to a student is pursuant to the professor’s official responsibilities?

Are you playing some semantic game? If so, no. If not, then yes. Of course "all speech" by a prof to a student literally isn't. They can socialize; they can discuss the UGA v. TCU game after class. That wouldn't be government speech. But all classroom instruction — which is what we're really discussing — is.

[Randal]

No, I think the sort of censorship here sweeps in after-class discussions as well.

[bernard11]

The government is entitled to form its own viewpoint at promulgate it at its institutions.

Actually, it's not, and even if it were it would be a really bad idea. Talk about destroying universities.

Of course, that's what DeSantis is all about.

[David Nieporent]

Actually, it’s not,

What is your basis for that claim?

[jdgalt1]

[none]

[KaDaSha]

Well said!

[Sarcastr0]

Where there once was institutional academic freedom, you would replace with what you define as good speech.

That's absolutely anti-speech authoritarianism, and I don't care about the formalities of whether the school is public of private.

The right yells about censorship, and then advocates for this shit.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The left has been censoring schools for decades.

We wouldn't tolerate young earth creationism in biology class, I don't know why we should tolerate this DEI crap is the public schools.

[Sarcastr0]

The call of 'we must become authoritarian to fight the authoritarians on the other side' is an old call of authoritarians.

You have never met a policy hostile to education you didn't love.

Are we passing laws about young earth creationism being taught in schools? We do not. Consider why racial matters are suddenly spinning up Republican governers instead.

[KaDaSha]

Yes!

[Lee Moore]

The call of ‘we must become authoritarian to fight the authoritarians on the other side’ is an old call of authoritarians.

True, but when Poppa is beating up Momma, the cops generally don’t concede “institutional freedom” to the household. They come in and arrest Poppa. (Based on laws, btw.)

The abuse of the old model of academic freedom by the “long march through the institution” types has demonstrated that the old model doesn’t work unless the academics and university administrators are themselves committed to academic freedom. Personnel is policy.

[bernard11]

We wouldn’t tolerate young earth creationism in biology class

No thanks to conservatives.

If you let the state legislatures in some states set curricula we'd have it.

[Lee Moore]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "institutional academic freedom" but I suspect you mean that the institution is insulated from interference from outside (except the dollops of money, which must never come with strings; and the person who pays the piper should never be involved in selecting pipers, that should be done by the pipers aready in situ.)

ie the university should be an insulated box, immune to any kind of control from the outside.

But inside the box, those leading the institution should have loadsa power to influence and direct what goes on within the university. The ants within the university do not have any immunity from the university itself.

Which basically means that your answer to "which government officials" is "the unelected apparatchiks atop the university administration, not those grubby elected ones."

[bernard11]

The question is – which government officials are to exercise these powers ?

And wrt curriculum content the answer is, "None of them." They shouldn't come close.

Amazing that conservatives generally show such utter contempt for government officials, but suddenly want them in charge of all education.

[Lee Moore]

So, just out of interest, how do you expect that a class of students will finish up studying Organic Chemistry and that that class will cover topics A, B, C, D and E but not topics W, X, Y and Z ?

And how will it be determined if subtopic 23 does or does not fall within topic D ? And if so to what extent ? And with what slant ? Is subtopic 23 to be presented as a central and vital discovery, or as a famous example of poor experimentation and goal directed error ?

There's an Invisible Academic Hand that magically solves these problems without the intervention of humans in authority ?

[bernard11]

I expect that the chemistry department in conjunction with the professor will make those determinations. You know, people who actually know chemistry. Not a bunch of yahoos who can't spell "chemistry."

If you think the university administration is going to do that you don't know much about how universities operate.

[Lee Moore]

And is not "the chemistry department" composed of government officials ? And the Professor - is he/she/it etc not a government official ? And may there not be a Dean - also a government official - who appoints the Professor (or refuses to do so, on political grounds - see today's VC story) ?

Moreover is there not a university administration which decides that there's going to be a chemistry department in the first place ?

You're just closing your eyes and pretending that there isn't a whole stack of government officials determining this stuff. But they're OK because they're the "experts" - who are pure, apolitical and motivated only by a disinterested love of academic enquiry.

If they were, that would be great, they could be left to get on with it without interference. But since, sadly, the universities are awash with folk who think it's all about making that long march through the institutions, then that model doesn't work any more. Maybe it could be re-established sometime.

But in the meantime it's the old question. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes ?

In the absence of pure Platonic Guardians to do the oversight, the only available custodes are the yahoos. At least they're answerable to the voters.

[bernard11]

And how do you expect this to happen in practice ? This is like hoping for free and open debate in the Central Committee of the CPSU.

Oh come on, Lee. That's ridiculous.

[rloquitur]

What do you do about some of the crackpot stuff that's the equivalent of phrenology or Lamarckianism? E.g., the melanin theory (supported by none other than Kristen Clarke). If I were a college freshman and subjected to this BS crap about "whiteness" and they tried to force me to acknowledge that nonsense, I'd embarrass them. (It's pretty easy to do--these DEI trolls are generally morons.)

[bernard11]

Are you a total moron?

First, Kristen Clarke did or said some stupid stuff 30 years ago.

Second, Kristen Clarke has no role in determining curricula in any college anywhere.

But you're a Tucker Carlson-addled ignoramus, so you post crap like this.

[KaDaSha]

Yes, it seems like there are a few Tucker fans here.

[Commenter_XY]

We should leave the winnowing of good from bad ideas to the process of scholarly investigation and disputation and free and open classroom debate.

We seem to have a dangerously low level of free and open classroom debate these days.

[bernard11]

And you want to make it worse?

[bernard11]

I'm curious why you think that, and what your sources of information are.