Dear Editors,
I read with interest your Feb. 11 article on the 2:1 student opposition to University political statements, in which you claimed that all political statements are protected by academic freedom.
Please understand that not all political comments are protected by academic freedom. In the mouths of individuals expressing personal convictions, they are indeed protected speech under the First Amendment, meaning the individual has the right to say them without government interference.
However, the protections afforded by the principle of academic freedom operate at a different level and relate to the ability of the university or other academic institutions like societies, journals, etc., to prevent academics from using academic channels such as publications, university websites, classroom lectures, etc., to convey academic ideas or statements. Such protection is only afforded to speech that is both academic and responsible.
I refer you to the American Association of University Professors 1915 statement on this where you will find elements of responsibility to include such ideas as that academic freedom is conditioned by conclusions being “set forth with dignity, courtesy and temperateness of language” and that they “set forth justly, without suppression or innuendo, the divergent opinions of other investigators.”
Insofar as speech is not set forth with dignity or courtesy, or does not provide a reasonable consideration of the best opposing arguments without innuendo, it does not merit the protections of academic freedom, and to date, nobody, including our committee, has determined that the antisemitic statements put up by several units in the College of Liberal Arts after the Oct. 7 pogrom in Israel, meet this standard.
Indeed, a major problem is that the relevant administrators and administrative bodies have steadfastly avoided the question.
Our Senate Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee has indeed produced a novel recommendation that institutional unit speech be afforded the protections of academic freedom. I refer you to appendix B of that report, which explains that this goes against over 100 years of thoughtful commentary on academic freedom, where such freedoms protect academics from their institutions, while this innovation actually traverses academic freedom, namely of scholars who dissent from their departmental statements.
Dr. Kyba is the Carey Ramey CCRF Professor of Pediatrics and a current member of the Senate Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee.
Professor 2
Apr 13, 2025 at 7:20 pm
Because you happen to disagree with these statements, Michael, does not make it legitimate for you to advocate the censorship of another’s opinion. Nobody in the liberal arts dictates on how your research involving stem cells expresses its expertise to the public. If we had a US President who wanted to question the legitimacy or ethics of stem cell research, you would have every right to issue a statement critical of the US government — even if outside groups regarded your collective statement as “political.” That would be for your academic unit to decide.
The same goes for areas of the University that study and teach histories and theories of violence, nationalism, genocide, human rights, and ethnic conflict. These groups of experts, in units across the University, are solely in the position to decide if they want to exercise their academic freedoms by writing statements about matters of public concern. If any faculty members are persecuting a minority opinion, undermining another’s academic freedom, or discriminating against students for their views, we have abundant mechanisms to hold them accountable for this behavior. We don’t take away speech rights at a University because there is risk of abuse. Walking down this path of rights infringement is anathema to the University’s values and our obligation to comply with the First Amendment.
That scholars can dissent — even stridently — against the US and Israeli governments is the sign of a healthy democracy. Selective censorship campaigns is the sign of the rising tide of authoritarianism. I hope you can sober up from your own political disagreement with these statements and resist the tendency towards censorship. It will eventually come for your field of study too.
Professor
Apr 13, 2025 at 1:12 pm
Your following comment, is of course, the rub of this debate on campus: unit statements “speak for the unit of the institution, thus if a scholar finds himself repudiated by the statement, he is repudiated by his unit, with impact on tenure and promotion. Proclaiming that a certain political perspective is illegitimate within a discipline or within the unit is the ultimate affront to freedom of thought and utterly destructive to academic freedom.”
Academic freedom is what protects a hypothetical faculty member in the face of what you term such repudiation: the professor’s colleagues are free to disagree with them, and free to hold the position that the professor’s dissenting stance is illegitimate within the discipline. But academic freedom is what bars them from weaponizing that dissent to harm the professor’s professional status–indeed, such weaponization would certainly be an affront to freedom of expertise and violation of the faculty member’s academic freedom. But the simple fact of the professor’s colleagues stating their position does not, in and of itself, entitle that professor to seek the statement’s suppression because it does not include their dissenting perspective. Indeed, academic freedom would protect that faculty member to do what any faculty member in such a situation ought to do with the rights of academic freedom: publicly criticize (not erase) the statement of their peers without risk of professional punishment.
Michael Kyba
Apr 11, 2025 at 5:14 pm
To the respondent ‘Professor’ below, please go and read Appendix B of our report. You can find the report at the link in the latter – click and then scroll to the bottom to read Appendix B.
Your characterization of the problem of unit statements as ‘You don’t have an academic freedom right to not hear expertise from which you dissent’ clearly indicates that you haven’t read the report. And it’s blatant nonsense – you will hear such things irrespective of whether your department makes a statement. Statements coming from an institutional unit of the university are not the same as statements of ‘a group of faculty’, even though they may well be driven by such a group. They speak for the unit of the institution, thus if a scholar finds himself repudiated by the statement, he is repudiated by his unit, with impact on tenure and promotion. Proclaiming that a certain political perspective is illegitimate within a discipline or within the unit is the ultimate affront to freedom of thought and utterly destructive to academic freedom.
If the format allowed, my last line would have been instead a paragraph summarizing all of the ways that institutional thought policing through such statements destroys academic freedom, but space doesn’t allow. Go instead to Appendix B of the report. And, in spite of the AAUP discrediting itself by turning itself into essentially a partisan political entity, it has never repudiated its original founding statement. Still well worth reading.
KG
Apr 10, 2025 at 5:16 am
Professor, academic units shamefully used the U’s platform to showcase blatantly anti-Semitic statements on Gaza. Dr. Kyba rightfully called out these statements for what they are: anti-Semitic. It’s fortunate that UMN eventually removed them, albeit belatedly. These disgraceful statements, displayed on the U’s website, were a significant embarrassment and tarnished the university’s reputation.
In another era, this discussion might have taken place while white-hooded bigots paraded outside the university’s hallowed halls. Venerated, gray beards of Professor’s ilk (is that you, Nathaniel?) would have been thundering about “academic freedom,” fervently defending their “expert” craniological theories “proving” the supposed inferiority of African Americans to White Men. They must be allowed to publish these views, they would argue, for the benefit and proper structuring of society.
Fast forward to today, and we confront a new iteration of racism: Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred. Racist, anti-Semitic professors have seized control of key academic units at the U—GWSS, CLCS, AIS—and have used their positions to broadcast their lies to the world. Chief among these lies is the absurd application of settler-colonialism to Israel-Palestine. Dr. Kyba reminds us that academic freedom requires presenting opposing views accurately and without innuendo. But when has Sima Shakhsari, or any member of Faculty/Educators for Justice in Palestine (F/EJP), ever abided by that principle? Shakhsari, a trans person, won’t even acknowledge that Israel provides asylum to trans Palestinians fleeing persecution.
The rot goes deeper. (F/EJP) racists not only peddle falsehoods, but they’ve turned their units into ideological echo chambers. Those with positive views of Israel are systematically excluded. Anti-Semitic professors entrench their toxic ideology by ensuring anti-Israel hires and using pro-Palestinian litmus tests to determine promotions, tenure, and employment. That’s the true fallout of those anti-Semitic statements. Sure, Professor claims faculty can “disagree” but conspicuously avoids discussing the professional consequences of dissent.
It’s time to investigate whether ideological litmus tests exist for faculty hires and promotions at the U (spoiler alert: they do). Within classrooms, the U must mandate that the false settler-colonialist narrative be balanced by robust discussions of the Jewish people’s historical and archeological ties to Israel, their ancestral homeland. Even Columbia University established a history of Israel course taught by a pro-Israel Israeli professor.
And don’t dismiss this UMN cleanup as some consequence of Trump. Kamala Harris would have cracked down, too. Doug Emhoff’s law firm recently joined an anti-Semitism lawsuit in California. The tide is turning—it’s time for UMN to act decisively.
Professor
Apr 8, 2025 at 3:04 pm
If one has to go all the way back to 1915 to find an AAUP statement one can use to tone-police academic expression, then it’s a good sign the argument isn’t a coherent one. AAUP has clarified the rationale and definition of work protected by academic freedom numerous times since 1915. In fact, it recently asserted that collective statements by faculty on political issues specifically should be considered for academic freedom protections.
Whether those statements are “civil” according to what passed as polite academic discourse 110 years ago has nothing to do with it. Nor, as this piece alleges at the end, does academic freedom entitle anyone to the suppression of views or expertise that they disagree with. It prevents the institution from silencing or censoring your expertise because the conclusions you draw are unpopular or controversial. You don’t have an academic freedom right to not hear expertise from which you dissent. If some faculty in your department want to issue a collective interpretation of a current event, you are protected from being associated with (which is why all the statements that were censored under the Regents’ policies had clear disclaimers explaining that they were not speaking for the unit as a whole or the University). Not even the smoke-filled rooms of AAUP people in 1915 would have agreed with the idea that someone’s academic freedom is violated by the assertion of someone else’s.
Keen
Apr 1, 2025 at 10:55 am
Personally disagreeing with a certain instance of academic speech does not make it ‘irresponsible’