Journal of Free Speech Law: “Academic Freedom & the Politics of the University,” by Joan Wallach Scott
The article is here; the Introduction:
The United States is in a difficult moment: what basic faith there was in the institutions of democracy has been eroded, constitutional protections have been undermined by the Supreme Court’s radical right-wing majority, and reason is no barrier against the libidinal release enabled by former president Donald Trump. In the wild proliferation of paranoia, accusation, retribution, and hate speech that flourishes on the internet and translates into dangerous, sometimes lethal activism in “real life,” education in general and the university in particular have been singled out for attack.
The attack on education is itself not new—right-wing think tanks and politicians have been at it for decades. But this moment seems somehow more dangerous, as Republican lawmakers and militant activists use their power to send censors directly into classrooms and libraries, promising conservative parents they will regain control of their children against the specter of “woke” indoctrination.
In one of those inversions of meaning so adroitly practiced by the right, censorship is being enacted in the name of free speech and/or academic freedom. The terms themselves seem to have lost their purchase: once weapons
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