My last post explained the social contract between the public and professors and what this implied for the role of professors and universities. That contract is that the public provides professors with high salaries, job protection and academic freedom in exchange for professors neutrally and independently pursuing the advancement of knowledge while instructing future generations about the state of that knowledge. Also, as explained in that post, proponents of the Critical Social Justice (Woke) perspective believe there to be a different social contract. I.e., that the public provides professors with high salaries and job security to tell them, and teach their children, how the world ought to be, and how they ought to behave. I wrapped up explaining why the latter social contract was incorrect and that the role of professors and universities is to uncover what is and not what they think it ought to be.
Ordinarily, the fact that some professors are at odds with the social contract applying to them wouldn't be overly problematic and could be chalked up to viewpoint diversity. There are, however, a few reasons for concern. The first is that these two opposing views aren't simply in opposition: they are in asymmetrical opposition. The Truth mission relies on, and is therefore open to, exploration and the confrontation of different ideas and viewpoints - including those presented by the Critical Social Justice perspective. It views this confrontation of ideas through reason, argumentation and evidence as the way to make progress towards truth. The Critical Social Justice mission on the other hand is guided by an extreme morality leading to moral activism. The result of this is axiomatic and doctrinal beliefs that are sacrosanct and that cannot be challenged or questioned. To question for example whether the pursuit of equity (the retributive redistribution of resources from "oppressor" to "oppressed" identities (Pincourt & Lindsay 2021)) is ethical, or even a good idea is to be quickly accused of bigotry. Accusations of bigotry can easily lead to being maligned, slandered, libeled, or even to having your livelihood taken away from you. Such life changing events take place despite avowed policies of academic freedom and often because of reluctance to defend academic freedom by administrators and universities fearful of bad press. It is easy to see how the Critical Social Justice perspective discourages the search for truth as people demure from pursuing taboo research topics or voicing ideas that dissent from Critical Social Justice doctrine.
Second, Critical Social Justice is becoming (if it is not already) the dominant mission of academic institutions and participants. This can be seen from all levels of academic infrastructure. This is the case now for funding agencies such as the NSF that provides directed funding on racial equity. It is the case for universities such as PSU where the first value of their mission statement is the promotion of equity. This is the case for the majority of academics - especially (although not exclusively) in the fine arts, humanities and social sciences. It is also the case for large and vocal proportions of university students. All of this is leading to the increased entrenchment of this perspective in the apparatus of academia.
The result is that universities, professors and research are increasingly guided by a mission in opposition to the mission of the pursuit of truth. Those who adhere to a mission of truth on the other hand are under increasing pressure to avoid research and ideas inconsistent with the Critical Social Justice mission, or even to express them publicly. Together, these represent a growing assault on Academic Freedom. As a result, the best way to bring universities both towards their mission of truth seeking, as well as into alignment with their governing social contract is by defending and strengthening Academic Freedom.
As alluded to above, there are two types of threats to academic freedom. The first are the very real threats to academics of pursuing or expressing unpopular ideas, while universities shy away from defending them. The second comes from institutional coercion or intimidation.
Institutional coercion and intimidation takes different forms at different levels of the academic hierarchy. Granting agencies guide research through directed funding of a political nature (see assertion of the existence of "systemic racism"). Granting agencies also compel academics to demonstrate commitment to political orthodoxy (see section on "HQP") as a requirement for requesting funding. Universities issue statements of a political nature, and are increasingly are expecting applicants to show commitment to political principles as a condition for hiring. Academic departments also routinely make political statements on behalf of their members. In the case of granting agencies, they guide and provide funding for research based on political priorities, and indeed expect academics to demonstrate fealty to certain political beliefs. Since funding is such an important aspect of academic evaluation, such signals can apply pressure to academics to pursue things they don't believe are the most important, not pursue some topics which they do believe to be important, or worse, compromise their freedom of conscience. Statements coming from universities and departments can have a significant effect on what academics pursue as research and/or what they say, since these institutions decide important career outcomes like the awarding of tenure. Naturally, university speech codes are one of the most direct methods by which freedom of speech and thereby academic freedom can be limited.
So far on this blog, I've concentrated on a description of the state of universities, the threat that the Critical Social Justice perspective represents to them, and how wokecraft can be countered. Here, I begin suggesting not only how to counter wokecraft, but what types of actual changes can be sought. Ultimately, the threats to academic freedom described above are of two categories: what universities aren't doing, and what academic institutions are doing that they shouldn't.
In the case of what universities aren't doing, they are simply not sufficiently defending the academic freedom of academics with unpopular views. The reasons for this are complex. In some cases university administrators may be reluctant to defend academic freedom because they disagree with the views held by those whose academic freedom is under attack. In some (probably most) cases, administrators simply don't want bad press. At the same time, it seems difficult to imagine that universities are likely to change this behavior on their own. As a result, you can work to strengthen academic freedom. This can be done by working with allies to have your own university adopt stricter and less ambiguous academic freedom policies, and/or the removal or reworking of speech codes. For the former, the gold standard for this is are the Chicago Principles. If working on such principles it is extremely important to make sure that Woke crossover words (Pincourt & Lindsay 2021, Chapter 2.3.2) are not inserted into any proposed principles. A particularly dangerous word in this context is the word harm or harmful. This word has been used in academic freedom policies so that they lose all meaning since the word harm can be used to described many types of expression, especially when weaponized by Critical Social Justice proponents. Getting such words removed from speech codes can also be useful.
Given the timorous nature of universities and their administrations, there are other policy avenues available that you can consider pursuing. These go above the administration of your own universities to the institutions that govern them. This is most commonly state governments. At this level, you can work towards legislation that compels universities to protect the freedom of their academics. An interesting option here is the Academic Freedom Champion proposed in the UK to provide a mechanism for threats to academic freedom to be reported, evaluated, and eventually to have sanctions (to universities) imposed.
A lot of the problems relating to academic freedom relate to what academic institutions are doing, namely guiding research, compeling adherence to political orthodoxy or making political statements. Critical to all of these are two things. Getting universities to stop doing things and what academic freedom applies to. The two are related. The reason is that academic freedom is something that applies to academics and not to academic institutions. As a result, granting agencies, universities and their departments do not have academic freedom. It is important for this to be recognized. Formal recognition of these principles lead naturally to the recognition that academic institutions are supposed to remain neutral.
As such, an important goal to work towards is recognition that academic freedom is for academics. From this it follows that academic institutions themselves do not have academic freedom and should thereby remain politically neutral. It is possible to enshrine the recognition of academic freedom applying only to academics in your own university, but given the already politicized role that many universities have, this is likely to be an uphill battle. As a result, this is the type of policy it's worth working towards in a state legislature. In addition to this, you can work towards the enforcement of neutrality of academic institutions. The gold standard for this also the University of Chicago, but in this case, its Kalven Report. As explained on the University's website:
"The Kalven Report explains that the very taking of a position by the University might chill the environment for free expression and academic freedom, and that it is essential that the University remain a place where individuals can explore and hold whatever positions they wish." It further emphasizes that “The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.”
The Kalven report aims at the university itself, but as we've seen, it's not only universities, but departments as well that are fond of taking political positions. As a result, you should work towards not only the neutrality of universities, but also any instances emanating from universities, including departments.
The last piece of the puzzle is government funding agencies. As described above, these also play an important role in stifling academic freedom. As a result, an important goal is to work towards the recognition that academic freedom does not apply to government granting agencies, and as a result, they should also be politically neutral. Making such changes requires going to the state and federal level, but changes in this regard can have a national impact - why not try for that?
Pincourt C. and J. Lindsay. Counter Wokecraft: A Field Manual for Combatting the Woke in the University and Beyond. Release in November 2021.
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