A Speech in Defense of Academic Freedom
The Mission of Higher Education is Free Inquiry. It Is Under Assault
This is the prepared text of my speech defending academic freedom (Look for the video later) during today’s rally in Defense of R University at Rutgers. The rally initially was planned to celebrate the one-year anniversary of our faculty strike and to coincide with the National Day of Action for Higher Ed.
The assault on Rutgers by Congress and the proposed gutting of the university writing program — and lay off of 29 of 31 lecturers (adjuncts) — shifted the events’ tone. We are in crisis at Rutgers and throughout higher education across the country.
Universities are supposed to be spaces for free inquiry. To fulfill their missions — our missions — they must be places of free speech and assembly for faculty, staff and students.
Our mission as educators is to instill in our students a sense of critical inquiry — which is why we need a vibrant writing program. We teach them to ask questions and challenge conventional wisdom. We want everyone who comes through our classrooms to find their voice and participate fully in our flawed democracy.
This freedom is under assault from a new McCarthyism.
College administrators at schools across the country — at the behest of donors and political operatives — are clamping down on what students and faculty can do in and outside of the classroom.
Dozens of states are restricting teaching about race, history, sexuality, and gender, and are seeking to shut down pro-Palestine student groups.
Congress is using the pretense of antisemitism to smear legitimate scholars and threaten schools like Rutgers.
I say pretense because these efforts — like today’s hearing featuring the president of Columbia and the Congressional letter seeking thousands of documents from Rutgers — are not about actual antisemitism.
They are about curtailing activism, silencing criticism of the U.S. and Israeli governments and the war on Gaza, and cowing students, faculty, and university presidents into accepting a conservative and corporate agenda.
Rutgers is an epicenter of this new McCarthyism. Congress is using its governmental power to investigate students, faculty, and staff, to attacked faculty and legitimate research institutes by name, and perpetuate the lie that Rutgers is hostile to Jews.
It is not. I say this as a Jew, an alum, and a faculty member. In fact, my status as a part-time instructor, a lecturer, puts me at greater risk than my religion, as our colleagues in the Writing Program can attest.
We have a choice at Rutgers and throughout higher ed. Be complacent, and ultimately complicit, or fight to ensure the phrase “academic freedom” continues to have meaning.