Words & Phrases We Could do Without

“Academic Freedom,” under this administration, becomes an anachronism

Twenty years ago, the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger, propounded on the concept of “academic freedom.” He explained, “Academic freedom goes to the heart of the university, to the rights and responsibilities of faculty and students, to the nature of teaching and scholarship.” He spoke to the necessity of the “atmosphere which is most conducive to speculation, experiment and creation”:

“It is an atmosphere in which there prevail ‘the four essential freedoms’ of a university—to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.”

Universities decide these things.

“Not outside actors. Not politicians, not pressure groups, not the media.”

Well, so much for that. On Friday, the Columbia University administration surrendered to the bullying of the Trump regime, giving a reactionary, racist, and authoritarian junta unprecedented control over its university.

Let’s be clear. One can find Columbia’s approach to the protests, violence, and hate speech that ran rampant on college campuses following Oct. 7 wholly insufficient, even morally contemptible. I certainly did. However, as with all aspects of free speech, the question is who gets to decide—what gets said, what gets taught, and what sort of academic environment and scholarship gets established. It is easy to defend agreeable speech. Defending speech you find objectionable is where the rubber hits the road. (You need not have been a communist to denounce McCarthy-era loyalty oaths.)

In every authoritarian regime, the strongmen seek to displace academic control of independent institutions with instruments of state control (e.g., political commissars; loyalty oaths) to turn academic institutions into instruments of state propaganda and control.

And so, Columbia slid down the slippery slope.

“Columbia University agreed on Friday to overhaul its protest policies, security practices, and Middle Eastern studies department in a remarkable concession to the Trump administration, which has refused to consider restoring $400 million in federal funds without major changes,” the New York Times reported. “The agreement, which stunned and dismayed many members of the faculty, could signal a new stage in the administration’s escalating clash with elite colleges and universities.”

Some of the concessions are petty and preposterous (no masks), which will be difficult—if not impossible—to enforce. (Wait for a new college fashion craze: ski masks.) Others would be controversial but fall within the boundaries of intellectual integrity if independently adopted (e.g., a definition of antisemitism; overhaul of its disciplinary system).

But others are staggering.

In perhaps the most contentious move, Columbia said it would appoint a senior vice provost to oversee the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department. The White House demanded that the department be placed under academic receivership—a rare federal intervention in an internal process that is typically reserved as a last resort in response to extended periods of dysfunction.

Columbia did not refer to the move related to the Middle Eastern studies department as receivership, but several faculty members said that it appeared to resemble that measure.

Some critics of the university’s response said they feared the White House could target any recipient of federal funds, including K-12 public schools, hospitals, nursing homes and business initiatives.

What’s next—a faux receivership for the history department that teaches about the legacy of slavery? For a political science department that teaches about America’s descent into authoritarianism? For a medical school that trains students to perform gender reassignment surgery and/or abortions?

As with all appeasement, there is nothing to prevent the Trump academic police from coming back with more and more demands before restoring funding to Columbia. This is how it works. It is always a fool’s errand to negotiate with authoritarian bullies who break agreements, who twist language to serve their needs, and who outright lie without consequence.

As the dean of U.C. Berkeley law school, Erwin Chemerinsky, pointed out, the Trump regime proffered an accusation that “Columbia violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in not adequately responding to a hostile environment against Jewish students.” Columbia retreated rather than compel the government to prove its case. Title VI requires “‘an express finding on the record, after opportunity for hearing’ of failure to comply with the statute, as well as ‘a full written report’ submitted to House and Senate committees at least 30 days before a cutoff takes effect.” None of that happened; Columbia simply capitulated, thereby conceding the attack’s legitimacy.

The Trump academic goons were not entitled to “stop speech that is protected by the 1st Amendment” or to seek sanctions beyond the specific program. But by surrendering without a fight Columbia allowed them to run roughshod over the institution’s academic independence.

“The Trump administration’s demands included changing Columbia’s admissions criteria, establishing rules related to protest that could restrict student speech and putting Columbia’s Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic “receivership” for at least five years, taking control away from its faculty, a potential violation of academic freedom.”

There is an alternative to the never-ending series of attacks on individual institutions willing to capitulate rather than undergo the rigors of litigation. “Universities have always thrived in free societies and been smothered in autocracies. Our free society is now under threat,” write Harvard professors Ryan Enos and Steven Levitsky, imploring their university to “help lead our country’s defense of democracy.” They wisely urge collective action among “a broad coalition of the country’s nearly 6,000 colleges and universities — which reach into nearly every community in America — to speak out in defense of democracy.”

In sum, Columbia and other schools that choose capitulation should stop throwing around the term “academic freedom.” Kissing the ring, bending the knee, and conforming to a particular president’s political preferences, just as they were during the McCarthy era, are the antithesis of academic freedom. The Columbia University authorities have thrown the institution’s reputation and credibility into the same ash heap where Paul Weiss’s reputation smolders.

Students, faculty, donors, and administrators should consider their options. “If democracy is to survive, though, it must be because the illegal and unconstitutional acts of the Trump administration are stopped,” Chemerinsky warned. “That requires that those targeted fight.” If they are not prepared to resist authoritarian capture, university leaders should dismount from their academic high horses, concede they are toadies of the state as they were in the McCarthy era, and stop using “academic freedom.”

That term, from the lips of cowardly administrators, is farcical.