Right-wing political pressure blocked a tenured appointment in journalism at the University of North Carolina, which is as clear a violation of the autonomy and academic freedom of a department as one can imagine. Every member of the journalism faculty, who can, should resign and go elsewhere. If the legislature were not under the control of Republicans, they should remove the entire Board of Trustees responsible for this violation. What will be next? Denying promotions to faculty with the wrong political views?
North Carolina faculty should study the experience of UT Austin in the 1960s, about which I wrote a number of years ago. A particularly telling story:
During the civil rights era, many law faculty were involved in efforts to end segregation, expand voting rights and the like. In 1964, the Board of Regents summoned law professor Ernest Goldstein to appear before the Board to "explain" his civil rights activities, about which the Board was concerned. [Law Dean] Page Keeton and the late Charles Alan Wright (law readers will know who Wright is, but I'll just note that Justice Ginsburg called him "a colossus atop the profession") drafted a letter to the Board, and secured signatures from the entire law faculty, stating that if Prof. Goldstein were forced to appear, the entire law faculty would resign. The Board backed down.
The journalism school itself may not have that kind of clout at UNC, but they need their colleagues in other fields to join them in this kind of protest.
UPDATE: F.I.R.E. is correct that this refusal to hire may involve unlawful viewpoint discrimination as well.
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