The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Academic Freedom Podcast Returns
Conversation with Brian Soucek about his book, institutional neutrality, and DEI
A new episode of the Academic Freedom Podcast has been released. The podcast is sponsored by the Academic Freedom Alliance and the Center for Academic Freedom and Free Speech at Yale Law School.
This episode features a conversations with Brian Soucek, of UC-Davis Law and the AAUP. Brian has been a leading scholarly critic of the new wave of a institutional neutrality policies and defender of the compatibility of DEI policies with academic freedom commitments. He now has a new book that brings those themes together in The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education.
In the new podcast episode, we discuss the mission of the university and its relationship with academic freedom, diversity initiatives in universities relating to faculty hiring and promotion, and institutional speech by university leaders and faculty bodies such as university departments. I've been on the opposite side of Brian on many of those issues, such as institutional neutrality and diversity statements. A useful and enlightening conversation. Give it a listen here.
