Academic Freedom is Under Attack
Watch This Video from a Teach-in Sponsored by Rutgers' Faculty Unions
Academic freedom would seem a simple concept. It protects academics — instructors, researchers, students, staff — in their work and ensures that there is no interference from outside forces.
While that may seem a simple proposition, we are now living in a moment in which our freedoms to teach, research, and write are being attacked. Florida has imposed significant rules on what can be taught, in K-12 schools and public colleges and universities. Other states are imposing rules that are just as Draconian, and others still are using budgetary justifications to gut humanities departments and courses.
The assaults predate the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and the genocidal assault waged in response by Israel on the Gaza Strip, and are part of a right-wing/corporate attack on institutions of higher education. In the wake of student protests against Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza, these forces have coopted Jewish fears of antisemitism and have ramped up the assaults.
On Friday, the adjunct and full-time/graduate unions sponsored a teach-in featuring historians Ellen Schrecker and Donna Murch and attorney’s Sahar Aziz and Elyla Huertas on what is happening and what we can do to fight back. Please take the time and watch.