Commentary: Political Solidarity Statements Threaten Academic Freedom

Keith E. Whittington January 26, 2024 1 min read

Keith E. Whittington
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: Barnard College has become the site of the latest flare-up in an ongoing struggle between faculty and university leaders for the control of university communication platforms. On October 23, the department of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies posted a statement of solidarity: “We support the Palestinian people who have resisted settler colonial war, occupation, and apartheid for over 75 years, while deploring Hamas’s recent killing of Israeli civilians.”

Shortly afterward, the university removed the statement from the departmental website. The move was in pursuit of the university’s “website governance policy” (established in November, after the department’s initial statement), which specifies that all subdomains of barnard.edu Internet domain are property of the college. Barnard is hardly alone in debating such issues. Princeton University recently tabled a policy aimed at formalizing procedures for units of the university to issue political statements.

Click here for link to full article

Leave a comment

Comments will be approved before showing up.


Also in Princeton Free Speech News & Commentary

The interview that exposed academia’s cluelessness
The interview that exposed academia’s cluelessness

By Megan McArdle July 27, 2026 1 min read

Megan McArdle argues that Carolyn Rouse — Princeton anthropology professor and AAA president — badly botched a Chronicle of Higher Education interview meant to rebut a Vanderbilt/WashU report accusing anthropology of suppressing dissent on politically charged topics. McArdle uses the episode to argue academia has grown accustomed to speaking only to itself, at a moment when public trust in higher ed is collapsing — and that unless it repairs its credibility, financial consequences will follow reputational ones.

Read More
Civic Education Centers Are Booming. The AAUP Wants Them Gone.
Civic Education Centers Are Booming. The AAUP Wants Them Gone.

By Tal Fortgang ‘17 July 14, 2026 6 min read

Faith in higher education continues to plummet, and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)—the nation’s leading organization representing faculty interests and a longstanding voice on academic freedom and university governance—has decided to train its guns on the growing movement to establish civic education centers at public universities. The AAUP’s objections amount to a single, unlovely demand: we get to decide what students learn, and nobody else gets a vote.

Read More
Is Anthropology Hopelessly Politicized?
Is Anthropology Hopelessly Politicized?

Stephanie M. Lee July 14, 2026 1 min read

Six days after the report went online, the AAA fired back with a full-throated defense. “Anthropologists welcome rigorous critique of the discipline,” wrote its president, Carolyn M. Rouse. “What we cannot accept is a sweeping verdict about anthropology’s intellectual culture, scholarly practices, and professional norms built on selective evidence and issued without consultation. 

Read More