University of Iowa reverses course on what faculty can say about COVID matters

Iowa is another ass-backwards state (like Alabama), where the Repug leadership cannot cope with the reality which the public health catastrophe of COVID presents.   Fortunately, the University of Iowa decided to rescind purported restrictions on faculty speech related to masking and vaccines.  (Thanks to a philosophy professor there for the pointer.)  This presents a somewhat odd academic freedom issue.  Academic freedom does not authorize faculty to speak in the classroom about subjects unrelated to the discipline they are teaching; but the First Amendment prohibits public universities from dictating what viewpoints can be expressed.  For a  sober assessment of the First Amendment and academic freedom issues, see the comments of Keith Whittington (Princeton); an excerpt:

Inside the classroom with a captive audience and specific professional responsibilities, the scope of the freedom [of faculty] to speak out on controversial topics is more constrained. The provost's directive, however, probably restricts too much. It is not for the provost to determine whether a discussion of masking policies is relevant to the subject of the course nor to limit such discussions to a small subset of classes on "health-related issues." It is also not for the provost to instruct faculty that they may not make any "value judgments" about vaccinations in response to student questions in class. It is hard to argue that a conversation about masks and university policies regarding masks in the classroom does not have a "pedagogical relationship" to the class, just as professors might express "personal views" about issues ranging from class attendance to examination policies, particularly if such a conversation is initiated by a student. Even if it is true that the board of regents policy prohibits professors from requiring students to wear masks in their class, it cuts too far to bar professors from saying anything normative about masks or vaccines for fear that students might "perceive" that the professor is asking the to don a mask.