Living in planetary and educationally uncertain times

American universities are experiencing an unprecedented attack on academic freedom. Will efforts to remake state universities – long understood as having a public purpose with a degree of independence – into wholly government schools succeed? The dark vision all this portends is of a state legislatu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of educational administration and history 2024-10, Vol.56 (4), p.424-430
Main Authors: Waite, Duncan, Waite, Susan F.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic freedom
aesthetics
authoritarianism
capitalism
Conservatism
Freedom of speech
Higher education
Politics
State government
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:American universities are experiencing an unprecedented attack on academic freedom. Will efforts to remake state universities – long understood as having a public purpose with a degree of independence – into wholly government schools succeed? The dark vision all this portends is of a state legislature or governor dictating university hiring and a curriculum of indoctrination, and where professors are merely the conduit for government speech. Though Cooper, for the State of Florida, has argued that the government can restrict professors’ content and viewpoints (Quinn Citation2024), professors’ speech and academic work must be seen as private and thus protected speech if free inquiry is to be protected (Whittington Citation2024) or universities will be drastically and forever changed. It is not too late to speak even while new technologies and the latest variant of capitalism are providing a disorienting medium in which competing senses of education are at stake.
ISSN:0022-0620
1478-7431
DOI:10.1080/00220620.2024.2399105