Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Mayo Clinic disciplines doctor and professor for expressing "incorrect" views about transgender issues

The Academic Freedom Alliance correctly criticizes Mayo, and has provided a lawyer to vindicate the doctor's rights.  What an embarrassment for an otherwise reputable institution.  The fact that 'Republicans are currently running a vicious campaign of harassment against transgender people is no justification for abridging a medical professional's legal right to express his professional judgment.  (The comments at issue by Dr. Joyner are utterly banal, and clearly correct, which makes this even more bizarre.  Mayo deserves to lose "big time.")

Mayo Clinic disciplines doctor and professor for expressing "incorrect" views about transgender issues

The Academic Freedom Alliance correctly criticizes Mayo, and has provided a lawyer to vindicate the doctor's rights.  What an embarrassment for an otherwise reputable institution.  The fact that 'Republicans are currently running a vicious campaign of harassment against transgender people is no justification for abridging a medical professional's legal right to express his professional judgment.

Mismanagement leads to financial crisis at West Virginia University, which will now be "solved" by cutting tenured faculty positions

This sounds like a U.S. version of the Birkbeck disaster, and it really deserves more serious coverage in the traditional media.  A professor at WVU (not in philosophy) writes:

WVU is currently in an unprecedented financial crisis and the administration is starting the process of cutting academic programs and faculty, including tenured faculty. I'm writing to you because you've often written about administrative overreach and malfeasance in cases like this before, and that is definitely what we have going on here at WVU. I'm trying to keep my name out of the public eye, because my department is surely going to undergo personnel cuts and I'd rather not be a visible enemy of the administration. But I wondered if you might give us some visibility by posting about the situation on your blog, which I know is quite influential. 

Essentially, the administration has been advancing a narrative where the school is a victim of general demographic trends, Covid, and inflation, and now they have to cut lots of faculty to eliminate a structural budget deficit that isn't anybody's fault. What's actually happened is that the President and his protege (a VP of 'strategic initiatives') have pursued a reckless and utterly failed growth strategy for the last 10 years, during which time enrollment has shrunk considerably, which has put the university in a huge financial hole. Their malfeasance and dishonesty is documented in great detail in this anonymous investigation by WVU faculty: https://wvufacts.wordpress.com/ .... We're having trouble getting any publicity or media coverage on what's actually happening here, because faculty are scared to go on record with the media, given the autocratic and deeply corrupt nature of Gordon Gee's administration (this probably won't be news to anybody who's followed higher-ed over the last 40 years or so of Gee's checkered career). And Gee and his cronies have giant media operations who have managed to get more or less friendly stories placed in local and regional media (and even Inside Higher Ed), basically parroting their dishonest version of events. 

Viktor DeSantis's war on higher education in Florida...this is what it looks like on the ground

A philosopher at a public university in Florida shares the email their Chair felt the need (no doubt correctly) to send out:

I wanted to give you a heads up about a recent law that has passed our legislature, SB 266, which goes into effect on July 1. For those of you who haven't followed the details, this law intervenes in higher education in a variety of ways that impact us, and I am happy to discuss any of this in more detail in person or over the phone/zoom. If anyone is interested, I can ask someone from the Counsel's office to attend our retreat to share their perspective on this with us. 

Chairs met with some of the university lawyers earlier this week, and they pointed out some of the sections of the law that might be important for us. 

While I would recommend that you familiarize yourself with the entire law, if you are teaching general education, you may want to attend to the section on general education that begins on line 528, with special attention to section c (line 556-561) and D2 (lines 567-571). I'm not sending this on because I anticipate problems, but simply for you to be aware of. 

Section c: "(c) General education core courses may not distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics, violates s. 1000.05, or is based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities."

Tenure in Texas: the aftermath

Tenure will remain at public universities in Texas, but new standards for revocation of tenure have been codified, including "moral turpitude" (without any definition or requirement for a criminal conviction) and "unprofessional conduct" that "adversely affects the institution."  What if a faculty member participates in a drag show?  Is that "moral turpitude"?  What if a faculty member tweets something controversial or vulgar, that attracts unfavorable media attention:  is that "unprofessional conduct" that "adversely affects the institution"?  There will be First Amendment challenges to some of the potential applications of these new standards, which are highly unusual and not at all part of standard AAUP criteria for tenure revocation.  Here's what the Texas chapter of the AAUP had to say:

"We do not believe that such a codification is necessary; furthermore, we are concerned with dangerously broad grounds for termination in the bill as well as the lack of the due process provisions recommended by the AAUP and adopted by more than 1,300 colleges and universities nationally, including many in Texas," said Brian Evans, vice president of Texas chapter of the AAUP. "Nevertheless, the legislation passed by the House and Senate improves dramatically on the original bill, and we are grateful to the legislators, faculty, staff, students, and professional organizations whose work contributed to the amended bill."

More on North Carolina's war on tenure and the universities

Informative.

The war on tenure (and abortion) comes to North Carolina

Philosopher David Austin (North Carolina State University) writes:

North Carolina House bill HB715 would eliminate tenure for all future UNC system faculty hires, replacing it with 1-4 year contracts.

The joint effect of the restrictions on abortion (SB20, effective July 1) and elimination of tenure would be enormous damage to NC's economy. Most women will not want to attend post-secondary education in states that restrict access to abortion. Most female faculty and those whose partners are women, as well as those who have female children, will want to avoid states that restrict access to abortion. Many businesses will leave or avoid such states. (If travel to another state or country to get an abortion can be criminalized by a woman's state of residence, business offers to cover any travel expenses won't help.) Some supporting detail is in the attached:   Download NCRestrictsAbortionTenure

I've seen little or no discussion in the media of the inevitable joint effects of limiting or eliminating tenure plus restricting access to abortion; maybe I missed it. I've looked for and not found comments by any economists of education. Perhaps they believe that it would be wasted effort because Republican legislators care only about their own re-elections and those who voted for them are ignorant or indifferent even if not favorably disposed towards the restrictions and the elimination.

Wash U/St. Louis professor being recruited for UT Austin's new "free enterprise" think tank...

...turns down offer because of the attack on tenure.  Will the awful Texas Lt. Governor, who championed the think tank and the attack on tenure, pick up this market signal?

(Thanks to Humphreys McGee for the pointer.)

Year-long initiative on free speech and academic freedom at UC Irvine

Announcement here.  UC Irvine Chancellor Howard Gillman has written widely on these issues.  University of Chicago recently created a new "Forum" on these topics, to be led by my law colleague Tom Ginsburg.  He has already been running a series of talks on these issues (I gave one on "The Law and Philosophy of Academic Freedom").  Hopefully we will see more such initiatives proliferating, including in states facing threats from Republican Governors and legislatures.

Texas tenure battle continues

We'll find out by Friday whether Texas will destroy its public research universities or not.  The bill that passed the Texas Senate will eliminate tenure for all new hires; the bill that passed the Texas House preserves tenure, but permits termination for some non-traditional reasons that are ripe for abuse, such as “conduct involving moral turpitude” or “unprofessional conduct that adversely affects the institution.”  The latter is especially egregious.  Some schools do have "moral turpitude" clauses, but defined in terms of criminal conviction for a felony.   The final bill will be worked out in a somewhat opaque "negotiation" process that I never understood even when I lived in Texas.  If the House version prevails, it will not be an immediate disaster, although if the vague clauses are weaponized by some schools, it will become a disaster.  If the Senate version prevails, the major research centers in the public university system (e.g., UT Austin, UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas A&M) will be decimated over the next ten years.

UC Santa Cruz being sued over its unlawful "diversity" statement requirement for job applicants

A news release here, and the complaint is here.   The plaintiff claims that the state is imposing unconstitutional conditions on job applicants in violation of their First Amendment rights, as well as engaging in unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination (I have emphasized the latter).

Students in the UK are still trying to deplatform philosopher Kathleen Stock

MOVING TO FRONT FROM YESTERDAY--UPDATED

It's apparently not enough to have run her out of her job, some of them still can't abide her being invited to speak.  The latest incident was at Oxford.  Philosopher Jeff McMahan (Oxford) kindly shared the very good letter he and other Oxford academics (including many philosophers [e.g., Timothy Williamson, Joel Hamkins, John Tasioulas, etc.]) sent to The Telegraph.  An excerpt (I added bolding to the crucial point):

Professor Stock believes that biological sex in humans is real and socially salient, a view which until recently would have been so commonplace as to hardly merit asserting. Whether or not one agrees with Professor Stock’s views, there is no plausible and attractive ideal of academic freedom, or of free speech more generally, which would condemn their expression as outside the bounds of permissible discourse. Unfortunately, the position of her opponents seems to be that Professor Stock’s views are so illicit that they cannot be safely discussed in front of an audience of consenting and intelligent adults at the main debating society at the University of Oxford. If this were the case, it is doubtful that they could be safely expressed anywhere – a result that, as her opponents are no doubt satisfied to find, would amount to their effective prohibition.

Anyone who disagrees with the bolded bit is really not fit for university life.

UPDATE:  The Oxford Student Union has sent out a message to its members denying that severing its financial relationship with the Oxford Union was related to the invitation to Professor Stock:

Hello Students,

We refer to the recent commentary in the national media regarding the decision of Oxford SU, the student union of the University of Oxford, to suspend its commercial and financial relationship with the Oxford Union, the private members’ club and debating society.

The press coverage erroneously conflates the recent motion passed by the Student Council of Oxford SU in relation to the Oxford Union with the Oxford Union’s decision to invite Dr Kathleen Stock as a speaker. The motion was unrelated to Dr Stock’s intended talk. It did not mention Dr Stock or any other speaker at the Oxford Union, instead citing long-standing concerns relating to alleged bullying, sexual harassment, discrimination and data privacy breaches which affect students. The motion was democratically passed at a meeting of students, following a debate which also did not mention Dr Stock.

It is deeply unfortunate that the media has chosen to imply a connection between the Student Council’s vote and Dr Stock’s talk.  Oxford SU is a charity which exists to promote the interests and welfare of students and to provide social, cultural, and recreational activities and forums for discussions and debate. We are committed to freedom of expression and freedom of speech, and will defend the right of people to have controversial and unpopular ideas debated as an integral part of university life and the student experience.

Draft Minutes from Student Council

 

Viktor DeSantis's war on higher education in Florida: the latest

He has now signed legislation that, among other things,

restricts certain topics from being taught in general education courses, the lower-level classes that all students must take for their degrees. It also expands the hiring and firing powers of university boards and presidents, limits protections for tenured faculty members and prohibits spending related to diversity, equity and inclusion programs beyond what is required by accreditors.

Regarding the restricted topics, the measure borrows language from last year’s Individual Freedom Act, also known as the Stop Woke Act. It targets “theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political and economic inequities.” While those ideas will be kept out of general education courses on Florida campuses, they could be allowed in higher-level or elective courses, subject to review by the Board of Governors for universities or the State Board of Education for colleges.

I expect SB 266 to be struck down as unconstitutional by the courts.  The only action he's taken that is not unconstitutional, and actually protects constitutional rights, is eliminating the use of "diversity statements" in employment.  Of course, as his other actions make clear, his motivation for doing so has nothing to do with a commitment to constitutional rights or academic freedom.  It's just an accidental by-product of his illiberal agenda.

Talk of eliminating or eviscerating tenure in Texas is already causing problems

From CHE:

“People turn down jobs for lots of reasons, but from what these candidates told me, the uncertainty around tenure was a big factor in our failure to hire this year,” said Daniel Brinks, chair of the government department at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Brinks said he’d made job offers to six candidates for two faculty openings this year, and all six declined. Another professor in the department informed Brinks last week that he’d be leaving.

New bill making its way through Texas legislature would preserve "tenure in name only"...

...or a kind of pseudo-tenure, as Keith Whittington explains:

Section 3(c) defines the property interest in tenure as a single year salary. This is designed to allow university to fire tenured faculty without good cause so long as it pays out a single year salary. A mockery of meaningful tenure...

And then we have terms of good-cause dismissal of tenured faculty. Section 3(c-1)(2)(A)(iv) allows for moral turpitude. Would like to know how common this is in tenure policies. I suspect not very. Seems ripe for abuse in context of faculty position....

And then part (v) allowing termination for violating university policies. Could easily facilitate death penalty for misdemeanors, and leaves open possibility of university adopting lots of highly dubious policies — such as bans on teaching divisive concepts....

And then part (vi) allowing termination for “unprofessional conduct.” Much more sweeping than how university policies are generally written. I would not like to arm an unfriendly administrator with such an I’ll-defined power.

 

Tenure now under attack in North Carolina

Here.  None of this is surprising in the neoliberal world:  any form of employment guarantee is obviously an offense to the "demands of the market," unless the market is foresighted, which almost none are.  

(Thanks to Adrian Barton for the pointer.)

Reader question: DEI litmus tests for appraisal and promotion?

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 26--MORE COMMENTS WELCOME

A reader in the UK writes:

The latest trend is academic appraisal and promotion criteria designed to reward DEI enthusiasts and disadvantage those with heterodox views. Several readers have sent me examples from a set of appraisal guidelines under consideration at an unnamed University. The proposed guidelines would require deans and department heads to grade academics based on whether they ‘champion initiatives to promote diversity and fairness’, ‘embed and develop inclusive teaching practices’, and work for ‘fairer outcomes’.

Certain more elite institutions are bucking this illiberal trend. Oxford Magazine ( Download Oxford EDI Article copy) last year related the V-C’s ‘unequivocal’ stand against this new fashion for policing the thoughts of scholars. Since then, Oxford has reportedly ditched a plan to require DEI statements from job applicants. Proposals to add ideological standards to appraisal and promotion guidelines there are likewise thought to be dead in the water.

In the comments, please ask your readers to share what is afoot in terms of incorporating ideological criteria into appraisal and promotion guidelines elsewhere (U.S., U.K., Australia, etc.). It would also be good to know about similar experiences in other institutions.

Recall that the Academic Freedom Alliance has opposed the use of "diversity statements" in appointments.  And Professor Matthew Finkin, an expert on academic freedom at the University of Illinois College of Law, has recently authored an excellent critical analysishttps://www.journaloffreespeechlaw.org/finkin.pdf of related proposals at his own university, from which there is much to learn for those facing these attacks on academic freedom elsewhere.

Comments are open for readers to report what's going on at their universities.  Use a valid email address, and identify the university, even if you do not use your full name.

Fascists appointed to New College of Florida Board of Trustees reject tenure bids of five faculty...

...for no reason at all, except that the Board members are fascists and plan to "remake" the college.  I hope the faculty who are victims of this political purge--that's what it is--will sue for violation of their constitutional rights.  They are being punished for their actual or perceived "viewpoint" in violation of the First Amendment.

What's going on in Florida generally is the most serious attack on academic freedom and free speech in the U.S. right now, far more important than infantile pseudo-leftists preventing conservative judges from speaking on campus (that's idiotic too, but does not compare in terms of ruining lives and chilling speech).  The fact that the right-wing press isn't up in arms about this tells you everything you need to know about their actual interest in free speech and academic freedom.

F.I.R.E. report on attempts to sanction scholars for their speech or work, 2000-2022

Informative, and it shows, sadly, a marked increase in recent years.  From the "executive summary":

The key findings of this report include:
▪ 1,080 scholar sanction attempts occurred between 2000 and 2022.
▪ The annual number of attempts has increased dramatically over time, from four
in 2000 to 145 in 2022.
▪ Almost two-thirds of attempts resulted in sanction, including 225 terminations
(698 of 1,080, or 65%).
▪ Nearly three-quarters of terminations involved untenured, rather than tenured,
scholars (165 of 225, or 73%).
▪ More than one-third of attempts were initiated by undergraduates (402 of
1,080, or 37%).
▪ In 2021, 213 sanction attempts occurred, more than in any other year. This was
partially due to Turning Point USA calling on parents and students to contact
the institutions of 61 professors featured on their Professor Watchlist website.

 

James Madison University needs a new Provost

Provost Heather Coltman has just been the target of a damning resolution by the JMU Faculty Senate (more than 90% voted in favor of the resolution):  Download Jmuamendedresolutionofcondemnationmar30

A second senior professor reports an experience similar to Byrne's with Oxford University Press

I have now heard from one other philosopher who had a trade book (not about transgender issues) rejected from OUP after consultation “with my editorial and marketing colleagues.” Despite “the manuscript [being] readable, accessible, lively, and interesting in the way that a book for a non-academic readership needs to be,” the worry was about the “controversy and sensitivity.” 

The only relevant difference here was that the professor did not have a contract before submitting the manuscript, unlike Byrne.  But the letter does sound similar to the one Professor Byrne received, except the "colleagues" consulted explicitly included those in "marketing" as well as others on the editorial side.  This professor's book was also picked up by another major academic press. 

I should have permission to release more information about this case in a couple of months.   But a worrying pattern--starting with this incident in 2019--is emerging here.

Alex Byrne's rejection email from Oxford University Press

Given the unpleasant speculation circulating on social media, philosopher Alex Byrne kindly agreed to share the rejection email he got from Oxford University Press after submitting the manuscript that was based on the proposal that OUP had put under contract.  Professor Byrne stated, in his original essay, that OUP rejected the book for the sole reason that the book "does not treat the subject in a sufficiently serious and respectful way.”  Subsequent public information suggested that the manuscript was rejected based on the reports of the four referees (see the descriptions of the reports here,), which led the skeptics to declare that this was all just sour grapes by Professor Byrne, not a case of publishing decisions being determined by political considerations.

In fact, the email rejecting Professor Byrne's manuscript makes clear that it was rejected not based on the referee reports (which are mentioned as an afterthought that might be helpful to Byrne) but based on consultation with OUP "colleagues" and "advisers" who--the email strongly implies--were not the "academic readers."  Here is the rejection email (with email addresses removed):

From: Peter Momtchiloff
Date: Thursday, June 23, 2022 at 12:43 PM
To: Alex Byrne
Subject: Trouble With Gender

Dear Alex

Thank you for sending me the manuscript for Trouble with Gender.  I have now read it, and consulted with advisers and colleagues.  I regret to say that OUP will not be able to publish your book.  I am sorry to have to give you a negative response.  I’m afraid our judgement is that the book does not treat the subject in a sufficiently serious and respectful way.  The same kinds of problems that I found with the introduction we now find continue throughout the book.

I am forwarding a copy of the manuscript which I have annotated.  I hope that these comments might be helpful to you.

I shall also forward comments from four academic readers.   Whatever you decide about the book, I hope that these will be useful to you.  It may be that another publisher would not agree with OUP in finding this treatment of the subject inappropriate, and would be happy to be able to publish the book.  Perhaps the comments I send may then prove to be useful to that end.

I am sorry to have to write to you with this decision, since you are a valued OUP author. 

With best wishes

Peter

Will the attack on tenure unite the Republicans and the "diversity" Democrats

There's a real risk it will, as this report about the Texas Senate vote to abolish tenure for new hires suggests:

A little more than a year after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick declared war on faculty tenure at the state’s public universities, the Texas Senate approved a bill Thursday that would bar schools from granting the benefit to newly hired professors.

Senate Bill 18 passed 18-11, largely along party lines, with Sens. Brian Birdwell and Kevin Sparks absent. Notably, Sen. César Blanco, D-El Paso, broke from his party to join Republicans in supporting the measure, arguing that tenure is a historical and discriminatory barrier for professors of color and pointing to racial disparities among faculty awarded tenure at Texas universities.

“I cannot and I will not defend the status quo to maintain the historic discriminatory barrier that tenure is within higher education for minorities,” he said.

Perhaps Senator Blanco will come to his senses, if he has any.

Alex Byrne on Peter Momtchiloff's response to David Wallace (and related matters)

Philosopher Alex Byrne kindly shared these thoughts (in response to yesterday's post, including my suggestion that he share the referee reports):

On to the possibility of sharing the comments on the first draft of my book, I do not think that readers’ reports solicited (and paid for) by a publisher are mine to share. Moreover, one reviewer simply supplied a pdf of the manuscript marked up with some (minor) helpful and constructive comments. Peter did likewise. (Most of those were incorporated in the version that will appear in print.) Another report consisted of Peter’s notes from a discussion with a reviewer. 

There was very little to respond to anyway. No mistakes or argumentative flaws were identified. One reviewer was very complimentary; another was laboring under various confusions which could easily have been cleared up. I have to admit that the book will irritate some people in mainstream feminist philosophy. (N.B. the book is not a scholarly monograph; it is aimed at a general audience interested in the topic of sex and gender. There’s not all that much “philosophy” in it anyway.)

I have nothing to hide (apart from the manuscript, since I want you all to buy my book, if only to commit it to the flames). OUP has my permission to release whatever comments it likes.

OUP's Peter Momtchiloff replies to David Wallace

Here is Peter M's reply to David Wallace's missive regarding the Byrne manuscript; I thank David for sharing it, and Peter for giving permission to share it:

Dear David 

Thank you for your message, and for your kind words about OUP.

You will understand that I can’t discuss the details of a specific review process, as this is a confidential matter.  I can confirm, however, that the decision not to proceed with Alex’s book manuscript was editorial in nature.  By way of clarification, let me assure you that the manuscript underwent peer review, and Alex was given comments on the manuscript from me and from four expert readers.  On the basis of these assessments, my judgement was indeed that the work was not appropriate for publication by OUP.   And Alex’s submission for the Handbook also went through a process of review by expert readers.

Feel free to share this reply if you wish.  I just ask that, if so, you share all of it.

Best wishes

Peter

Everything now depends on the content of those reports.  One possibility is they contained meritorious criticisms; far more likely (given Byrne's extremely high level of competence in analytic philosophy) is that they contained ideologically motivated critiques related to Byrne's conclusions rather than the quality of his arguments.  I hope Alex Byrne will share the reports; assuming they are anonymous, I see no harm in his doing so, especially since what's at stake here is the integrity of the editorial review process at OUP.

Censorship of philosophy at Oxford University Press

Alex Byrne recounts the disgraceful tale.  Note that Professor Byrne, a philosopher at MIT, has previously published a philosophical monograph with OUP, and has contributed many essays to OUP volumes, as one would expect given the quality of his work over many years and his prominence in the profession.  There is only one explanation for what he recounts in this new essay, and it is telling about the rot of ideological corruption in academic philosophy these days.  An excerpt, regarding just one of the incidents:

I received an invitation to contribute a chapter on pronouns for the Oxford Handbook of Applied Philosophy of Language. The format, I was told, is “very flexible,” and that “it would be wonderful” if I could find time to write the chapter. As it happened, I had been thinking about pronouns for my book, and taking some time out to research the topic more thoroughly seemed like a good idea, so I accepted.

There are more than 1,000 Oxford Handbooks (published by OUP)....An invited handbook chapter on one’s CV is not as valuable as a peer-reviewed paper in a journal, but academics accept these invitations because publication is practically guaranteed. The bar for an acceptable chapter is not particularly high, and the reviewing process is usually cursory.

The handbook had two editors, Ernie Lepore, a respected senior philosopher, and Luvell Anderson, a philosopher about whom I knew little. (It’s worth mentioning that Lepore’s friends would hardly describe him as “woke.”) I wrote to Lepore, “Just to be clear on the assignment. This is an entry about issues like: whether (or why) we should call Demi Lovato ‘they’, or Elliot Page ‘he’; whether we should call everyone ‘they,’ etc.? … Obviously I’ll try to keep it respectful but I should warn you in advance that any balanced and frank discussion of this topic is bound to annoy some people. (I won’t be offended if you want to reconsider.)” Lepore replied, “All systems go. Thank you for agreeing to this.”

The legislation that will "blow up" Texas universities

Academic freedom expert Keith Whittington reviews the pending legislation.

(Link now fixed.)

Not everyone is thrilled with Ken Griffin's $300 million naming gift to Harvard's Graduate School of Arts & Sciences

(Link now fixed)

Amusing and not surprising, since it is an embarrassment:

Theda R. Skocpol, a Government and Sociology professor and former GSAS dean, slammed the decision in an email to The Crimson.

“I am absolutely disgusted at the sale of the GSAS name to a multi billionaire who works in US politics today to undermine the foundations of liberal civil society, including free speech, and to eviscerate the essential trans partisan features of fully representative US democracy,” she wrote.

“This is a shocking and unnecessary sell out by Harvard and FAS leaders who, at the same time, claim to be worried about Harvard College’s acceptance of slavery in the 1700s,” Skocpol added. “Feel free to quote me.”

One reason why it is hard to take the American Philosophical Association seriously...

...is that it still has on the books a "Code of Conduct" that violates the First Amendment rights of faculty at public universities and the academic freedom rights of all faculty.   Perhaps current leadership will rectify this professional embarrassment, and repeal this Code and enact a normal one, like most other professional organizations.

New faculty group on academic freedom at Harvard established

Here.  We've had a similar group at Chicago for a couple of years.   Are there other such groups on other campuses?  Please post links in the comments.

(Thanks to Ned Hall for the pointer about the new Harvard group.)

College accreditation agencies now flexing their muscles for "diversity"

From CHE:

The six-year graduation rate for [California Lutheran University's ] Hispanic students, who make up 40 percent of its 2,800 undergraduates, is equal to that of white and Asian American students, at about 75 percent. That sets the university apart from most others: Nationally, about 54 percent of Hispanic students graduate within six years.

Despite that accomplishment, the university received from its accreditor in early 2021 a “notice of concern” finding that it wasn’t truly inclusive. Academic outcomes hadn’t similarly improved for Black students, for whom the six-year graduation rate is 69 percent, according to a report by the WASC Senior College and University Commission, formerly the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, one of the nation’s major institutional accreditors.....

The 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black [also a poor and economically marginalized--ed.] man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, was another catalyst for action by the Western commission. “What does the death of George Floyd have to do with what we do? Everything,” the agency said just days after Floyd’s death. Spurred by that event, the accreditor established an Equity and Inclusion Council to make those issues central to everything it does....

The assault on New College of Florida

Philosopher Nicolas Delon at New College talks about how these developments are affecting the faculty; an excerpt:

We have seven or eight tenure-track candidates coming up for tenure this year. Everyone has a positive recommendation for tenure. The next step is supposed to be the Board of Trustees, which in April will approve or deny tenure. Traditionally, the Board of Trustees just rubber-stamps the tenure based on the recommendations that are made. Now, recently, President Corcoran has met with the president of our union to recommend that the candidates withdraw their files before it’s too late. My interpretation is that Corcoran suspects there’s probably a non-negligible proportion of the trustees who want to make an example out of those people and deny them tenure. The trustees as a whole, Corcoran and DeSantis want to turn our institution into something different. And in order to do that, they need to hire new faculty. The best way for them to hire new faculty is to get rid of the faculty who they can fire without breaching contract. So that means firing the tenure-track faculty.

They can’t fire tenured faculty like me without breach of contract, but our collective bargaining agreement is not eternal—it’s up for renegotiation in June 2024. And with DeSantis’s higher-education bill, which is basically trying to overhaul tenure, there’s a possibility that it will be very easy for the president to fire many of us even with tenure. He has said they have currently no plans to fire tenured faculty. But should we trust him?

War on tenure comes to Louisiana...

...with new legislation to require annual reviews of tenured faculty, proposed by a legislator openly committed to abolishing tenure.  One can't expect neanderthals like this to understand the value of academic freedom, so the best bet, I suspect, is to point out that tenure is a form of non-monetary compensation, and without it, salaries will have to increase.  These folks usually understand $$$!

FIRE on the Shaviro case at Wayne State

Following up on this, here is FIRE's informative statement on the case.  It explains the applicable legal standards methodically.

Enemies of academic freedom watch: Michael Berube edition

Professor Berube is a partner-in-crime with another serial enemy of academic freedom, Jennifer Ruth (we noted awhile back a critical discussion of their terrible [indeed, incompetent] book putatively on academic freedom).   A mutual friend on Facebook alerted me a few days ago to the fact that at a recent talk at Smith College, Professors Berube and Ruth took issue with some comments of mine back in 2009 about calls to fire John Yoo at Berkeley (longer discussion here).  Professor Berube, who teaches English at Penn State, assured his friends that this was "a colossally bad argument by philosopher Brian Leiter."   Do read what I wrote then, which was and is still correct, at least if you're not an enemy of academic freedom.

Here is Professor Berube's contribution to the Dunning-Kruger Effect literature (I intersperse some comments):

[Leiter's] argument is one of those blog-standard and now-ubiquitous conflations of academic freedom and free speech, under which academic freedom covers work that is "implausible, badly argued and morally odious" so long as that work does not involve research misconduct or intellectual dishonesty.

This is itself an absurd conflation of two separate issues:  one concerns what academic freedom protects; the second concerns the grounds on which Berkeley will sanction a faculty member.  Regarding the latter, Berkeley is explicit that it can  sanction a faculty member based on a finding of research misconduct or dishonesty (e.g., plagiarism), as well as a court judgment involving certain kinds of criminal misconduct.  There were no such findings against Yoo:  he engaged in no plagiarism, research misconduct, or legally adjudicated criminal misconduct.  The calls to fire him were calls for Berkeley to adjudicate the question whether he violated any laws, which universities are not equipped to do (thankfully).

I do wish certain humanities professors would stop embarrassing the academy with pointlessly inflammatory social media posts

The latest culprit is Steven Shaviro, an English professor at Wayne State, who posted on Facebook his view that it would be better to kill bigoted speakers rather than simply protest them, offering this analogy:

The exemplary historical figure in this regard is Sholem Schwarzbard, who assassinated the anti-Semitic butcher Symon Petliura, rather than trying to shout him down. Remember that Schwarzbard was acquitted by a jury, which found his action justified.

The idiot right (like the site linked above) glossed this bizarre post as Shaviro advocating murder "for those he disagreed with," but as the analogy with Schwarzbard suggests, "disagreement" is not sufficient:  after all, he murdered someone who was a butcher of Jews in Ukraine.  What's slightly nuts about Shaviro's post is analogizing mass murder to the expression of racist views:  speech and action aren't the same, despite the best efforts of many folks to confuse the two.  (Being an English professor, Shaviro throws in "transphobic" views to the list of views that warrant murder!)  Anyone who decides to kill a bigot will not be acquitted.  So Shaviro's post is idiotic and ignorant on many levels.

Stanford Law Dean issues detailed statement regarding the disruption of a talk by a federal judge...

...and it's a model for administrators dealing with student disruptions and free expression issues on campus.

Philosopher Ann Cudd as Provost at Pitt

As recently noted, she will soon become President of Portland State University.  At Pittsburgh, she had a rough run.  A reader at Pittsburgh also flagged the following for me:

Ann Cudd, philosopher, University of Pittsburgh provost, and soon-to-be president of Portland State University, responded publicly today to demands to cancel campus events featuring controversial speakers. The decision, for now, is the right one, and Provost Cudd seems to grasp the correct rationale for it. But the statement quickly veers into a familiar sort of DEI homily. Provost Cudd openly advertises her political views and implies that the university itself condemns the speech in question (at one point suggesting it represents a "misunderstanding"). The statement culminates in the following fervent pronouncement:

“One fact is unshakable and unchangeable: Before, during, and after these events, our touchstones—the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion—will continue to not only persist and sustain us but will gain even more strength."

Now Pitt's mission statement doesn't so much as mention these so-called touchstones. That aside, I was struck by the religious quality of the statement. I did time at a conservative, religious-affiliated university. To my ear, the grandiose, moralizing tone is unmistakable. I hope that Provost Cudd, and whoever follows her at Pitt, will continue to uphold free expression on campus. This kind of official sermonizing, which in effect raises the stakes for students who oppose the DEI line, does not inspire confidence. 

More on the case of Professor Wax at Penn...

...at my law school blog.

The war on universities and academic freedom comes to Texas

This Texas Tribune article gives a useful overview of the mischief afoot; here are the three main legislative initiatives:

A bill filed Friday in the Texas Senate would prohibit public colleges and universities from awarding tenure to professors hired after September, legislation that critics have said would make it extremely difficult for the state to recruit top faculty and negatively impact the reputation of its higher education institutions.

The bill, filed by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, is one of three pieces of legislation in Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s list of priorities for higher education this session.

Creighton also filed a bill that would prohibit Texas’ higher education institutions from considering diversity, equity and inclusion when hiring new employees. The third bill, filed by Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, would prohibit faculty members from teaching that any race, ethnicity, sex or political belief is "inherently superior to another."

Only the second bill would actually promote academic freedom; the fact that it keeps company with the other two bills makes clear that academic freedom and free expression are not the goals at all:  the goal is to suppress perceived "liberalism" in the universities, the First Amendment be damned.

 

The Stanford Law School "heckler's veto" incident involving a conservative judge

For those interested, there is more at my law school blog.

What the mindless "diversity blather" misses about serious pedagogy

I've received many appreciate messages about my response to the confused CHE piece on diversity and academic freedom.  This part of one message is worth sharing, since it captures, I suspect, what many find so offensive about the requirement of "diversity statements":

My entire career, my student body has been extraordinarily diverse.  In fact, I would estimate that north of 80% of my students have been Hispanic and/or black.  I am a middle-aged, white male.  While the ideologues might find it shocking, reviews from my students consistently tell of my genuine care for them, my accessibility, the respect that I show them, the sometimes life-changing experience that they had in their time with me.  Need I catalog in a "diversity statement" my commitment to those students or to those I might teach elsewhere?  What I do has nothing to do with such a concept.  It stems entirely from the fact that they are my students, from the fact that I am invested in their goals, their dreams, their success, regardless of their age, sex, race, sexual activities, politics, or ideologies.

More on the brazen attack on tenure and academic freedom in Florida...

...from the United Faculty of Florida.

A more substantial response to "Diversity Sometimes Trumps Academic Freedom"...

UPDATE:  The published letter is here.

...which I noted yesterday.  Here's the letter to the editor I sent to CHE:

To the Editor

Rutgers law professor Stacy Hawkins writes that, “The First Amendment, and the principle of academic freedom which emanates from it, is not exempt from the rule that no right is absolute.”   The First Amendment protection for academic freedom, however, only applies to faculty at public universities; faculty at private universities typically enjoy a contractual commitment from their university to protect academic freedom pursuant to the AAUP definition.  Employers can not violate contractual rights because they want to pursue other objectives incompatible with them:  it is thus false that “academic freedom may sometimes…need to cede to the responsibility academic administrators have to effective the institutional commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.”  Academic administrators who take that approach are breaching a contract with their employees.  (Many public university faculty, it should be noted, also enjoy contractual protection for academic freedom.) 

Even in cases where the First Amendment does apply, there are, as Professor Hawkins presumably knows, hardly any exceptions to its protection when it comes to punishing speech based on its content (e.g., because it offends against diversity values).  There is certainly no “diversity” exception to the First Amendment, just as there is no “hate speech” exception.   So the whole “balancing interests” framing of this essay is completely beside the point.

When does DEI ("diversity, equity, inclusion" for the un-indoctrinated) trump academic freedom?

I'll have more to say about this pathetically bad (and factually inaccurate) CHE essay tomorrow, but my colleague Jerry Coyne covers it at his blog (including with some observations I made on a local listserve about the legal incomeptence of the essay).

Florida Philosophical Association statement on the attack on the universities by Viktor DeSantis

Here, it's a good statement. An excerpt:

The professoriate stands accused, by politicians, of “indoctrinating” students. Like Socrates (famously, and falsely, accused of “corrupting the youth” and “impiety”), we teach our students to think critically about common wisdom, to question authority, and to welcome fresh perspectives and ideas–even when doing so results in discomfort. We urge you to reject political edicts that prohibit the teaching of ideas on which we might disagree, that replace critical academic inquiry with pre-packaged state-approved lessons, and that demand fearful obedience rather than the courage to have difficult conversations about truth and justice.

This is clearly true of every philosophy department in the Florida public university system I know about (including New College, FSU, and UF), but is it true of other humanities departments?  I really don't know.  I doubt such fine distinctions keep Ron Orban up at nights, of course.

Viktor DeSantis comes for all the public universities in Florida, for real now!

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FEBRUARY 24--UPDATED

Here's the proposed legislation; the new bits are underlined.  Not all of it is outrageous, but most of it is:  e.g., The Board of Trustees is responsible for faculty appointments, and need not consult the existing faculty.  It's fair to say Humboldt did not inspire this vision of the university, as mostly an appendage to industry and the Republican Party.  A lot of these provisions will be challenged, and some will almost certainly be enjoined as unconstitutional (e.g., attempts to regulate the content of course offerings to prevent verboten views from being aired).

UPDATE:  FIRE's analysis of all the unconstitutional provisions is apt.  (Thanks to Gregory Mayer for the pointer.)

The problem with Heterodox Academy is that it is "woke"

That's what philosopher Nathan Cofnas argues in this, shall we say, "provocative" essay.  I have never had anything to do with Heterodox Academy, not for lack of sympathy with their "principled" message about freedom of inquiry and speech in the academy, but rather because of their oft-expressed view that what the academy needs is more Republicans (which is rather different than saying the academy needs robust academic freedom norms and diversity of disciplinary methods and paradigms).  The Republican Party in the U.S. was once upon a time the place where pro-business apologists for capitalism went (pro-labor apologists for capitalism went to the Democratic Party). That is now ancient history:  Reagan sent the Repugs off the rails, and it got worse in the 1990s, and veered into fascist territory with Dopey Donald Chump.  (The remaining nominal Republicans in the academy are overwhelmingly libertarians and free-market utopians, who haven't much to do with the actual Republican Party.  My friend and colleague Richard Posner gave up on the Republican Party more than a decade ago!). The Democrats--which of course still represent the interests of the ruling class, albeit the prudent wing--are the only viable party in the United States, despite (or rather because) its center has been captured by "wokeness," that is, by the idea that all social injustices derive from "race" (and racial prejudice or "systemic racism") rather than class.  Adolph Reed, whom I've often linked to, is a good source for an "unwoke" perspective from the left.

A Black professor "trapped in anti-racist hell"

MOVING TO FRONT FROM FRIDAY, FOR THOSE WHO MAY HAVE MISSED IT

This is a pretty wild story:  it's like Lord of the Flies meets Ibram Kendi.

Statement of the faculty at New College of Florida

Here, in light of the unprecedented attack on academic freedom by Governor Viktor DeSantis.