Why Americans must speak up to defend university autonomy
Jeremy C Young and Jacqueline Allain | 15 March 2024 | University World News
“We aren’t always for diversity.”
“The world needs more cowboys…not more social justice warriors.”
“DEI must die.”
These quotes are not from internet trolls, or from authoritarian governments in places such as Hungary or Russia. They are from legislators in Kentucky, Wyoming and Nebraska who are seeking to undermine diversity and free inquiry at United States colleges and universities.
In these states and others, Americans are witnessing a proliferation of legislation that effectively demolishes academic freedom and institutional autonomy at colleges and universities. Together, these bills place American higher education in grave peril.
The solution, we believe, is for American higher education leaders, and the public at large, to embrace both academic freedom and a concept that has thus far been far more influential in Europe than in the United States: the autonomy of universities from direct political interference….