The Academic Freedom Podcast

On Columbia University and the Trump Administration

Keith Whittington is joined by David Cole, the Honorable George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at Georgetown University Law Center. He is also the former National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union. This episode focuses on the recent “Statement from Constitutional Law Scholars on Columbia,” of which Professor Cole was a lead author. That statement was published on the website of the New York Review of Books, and was signed by an ideologically diverse group of 18 scholars ranging from Steven Calabresi and Eugene Volokh to Erwin Chemerinsky and Pam Karlan. Keith Whittington also signed the statement. 

On the Boundaries of Faculty Free Speech

The AFA's Keith Whittington sits down with Michael Berube and Jennifer Ruth to discuss their recent book, It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom. Michael is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Pennsylvania State University. Jennifer is a professor of film at Portland State University. He is the author of such books as What’s Liberal about the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and Bias in Higher Education, and she is the co-editor of the recent book, The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom. They both served as members of Committee A on academic freedom at the American Association of University Professors.

Timothy Zick on Public Protests and the Law

Keith Whittington sits down with Timothy Zick, the John Marshall Professor of Government and Citizenship at William & Mary Law School and a leading expert on the First Amendment law surrounding protest activities. His first book was Speech Out of Doors: Preserving First Amendment Liberties in Public Places, which was published in 2009. His latest book was published by Cambridge University Press and is Managed Dissent: The Law of Public Protests. They discuss the law of public protests in general and the specific situation of protest activities on college campuses.

A Conversation with Professor Cary Nelson

The AFA's Keith Whittington interviews Cary Nelson, the Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts & Sciences Emeritus at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He served for many years in the leadership of the American Association of University Professors, including terms as its president from 2006 to 2012. He is currently chair of a new organization, the Alliance for Academic Freedom, not to be confused with the Academic Freedom Alliance. In addition to his work on American poetry, he is the author of several books on higher education, including Manifesto of a Tenured Radical from 1997 and No University is an Island from 2010. His latest book is the just published Hate Speech and Academic Freedom: The Antisemitic Assault on Basic Principles.  

Mitch Daniels on Promoting Campus Free Speech

The AFA's Keith Whittington interviews Mitch Daniels, the outgoing president of Purdue University and former Republican Governor of Indiana. During his time at Purdue, President Daniels has carved out a national reputation as a leader on campus free speech issues. Daniels shares the principles and practices he has followed to dramatically improve Purdue's rating as a defender of academic freedom. The university most recently appeared at number three on FIRE's College Free Speech Rankings. 

A Conversation with Professor Eugene Volokh

The AFA's Keith Whittington interviews Professor Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law, where he teaches on the First Amendment. Volokh is also the founder and coauthor of The Volokh Conspiracy, a leading legal blog. Whittington and Volokh discuss the recent Georgetown Law controversy involving Ilya Shapiro, and whether universities should take public positions on the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion. They also discussed the Kalven Report, a 1967 report from the University of Chicago on the relationship between academic freedom and the political neutrality of academic institutions.

Protecting Controversial Speech On and Off Campus

The AFA's Keith Whittington interviews Professor David Rabban of the University of Texas Law School, a member of the AFA's Academic Committee and former general counsel for the American Association of University Professors, about the importance of protecting both intramural and extramural speech. Drawing from recent high profile cases in which professors were sanctioned by their employers over statements made on social media and in podcast interviews, Whittington and Rabban explore how the principles of academic freedom apply to faculty both on and off campus, in their lives as scholars and as citizens. 

The Case for Tenure: A Rebuttal to Proposals in Texas

In this special edition of the Academic Freedom Podcast, Keith Whittington interviews Matthew Finkin of the University of Illinois College of Law about the new proposals from Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick to end tenure as we know it at state colleges and universities. In addition to ending tenure for new hires, the proposals would revoke tenure for professors who teach critical race theory and institute annual post-tenure reviews for all. The Academic Freedom Alliance said in a statement that the proposals would “strike at the very heart of the academic enterprise.”

 

Matthew Finkin is a renowned expert on academic freedom and the author of multiple books, including The Case for Tenure. Listeners can learn more about the importance of tenure in Episode 6 of the Academic Freedom Podcast (published 10/20/21) on Georgia's Post-Tenure Review Policy, and by reading the AAUP’s 1915 Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure.

Reaching Bipartisan Consensus on Campus Free Expression

The AFA's Keith Whittington interviews Dan Cullen, Professor of Philosophy at Rhodes College. Professor Cullen was a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center's Academic Freedom Task Force on Campus Free Expression, which recently published its report, Campus Free Expression: A New Roadmap. In this wide ranging discussion, Whittington and Cullen cover key findings of the report, how those findings relate to recent controversies, and the most salient takeaways for universities and policymakers. 

On SUNY Fredonia, Moral Philosophy, and Forbidden Questions

In this special edition of the Academic Freedom Podcast, the AFA's Keith Whittington interviews Jeff McMahan, the Sekyra and White’s Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford, about the current controversy at SUNY Fredonia involving Professor Stephen Kershnar. An applied ethicist and distinguished teaching professor of philosophy, Prof. Kershnar has been placed under administrative review and barred from campus for conducting research and making statements in a YouTube interview about "adult-child sex." 

The Academic Freedom Alliance sent a letter to SUNY Fredonia in defense of Prof. Kershnar's academic freedom and partnered with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) to draft an open letter from philosophy faculty in support of his right to tackle difficult questions.  

In this conversation, Whittington and McMahan explore not only the controversy itself, but also the larger questions surrounding what moral philosophers do, why they ask such controversial questions, and what value they bring to our understanding of society's most difficult issues.