Professors Speak Out: The Truth about Campus Investigations
Available at: Amazon |
Professors Speak Out showcases the stories of 22 faculty members from various fields, all of whom have been investigated by their own colleges or universities. These disturbing narratives reflect the growing frequency of absurd campus investigations, which often result from the expression of disfavored opinions—opinions that should be protected by free speech rights and longstanding principles of academic freedom. Some of the contributors paid the ultimate price, the loss of a tenured faculty position. Many others learned that the investigation itself is the punishment, with chilled speech an inevitable byproduct. By providing a badly needed platform for persecuted voices in contemporary academia, this unique volume exposes the grave injustice that confronts faculty members today and calls into serious question the twisted bureaucratic processes that give rise to such investigations. Taken together, the stories told here show how a new campus McCarthyism is assailing academic freedom.
BLURBS
“Too many elite colleges have betrayed their own commitments to due process, free speech, and basic fairness. This book is an important exposé from those who have witnessed this unfairness firsthand: the professors. Read them in their own words; it’s a vital effort to set the record straight.”
– Robby Soave, Senior Editor, Reason
“I have read fairly widely studies of current challenges of higher education. This is the first to bring home the individual tragedies of professors caught up in the contemporary politicization of colleges and universities.”
– Paul M. Sniderman, Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy, Stanford University
“The testimonies in this important book provide a painful window onto the current state of our campuses. The authors’ stories deserve careful, public discussion, the result of which, we can only hope, will be real change.”
– Joshua T. Katz, Senior Fellow, The American Enterprise Institute, formerly Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics, Princeton University
“Having gone through an academic inquisition myself, I know all too well the perils the brave souls featured here went through. Like a samizdat collection from the gulag, their stories illustrate the illiberal takeover of higher education by political commissars and other apparatchiks.”
– Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
1) Sex
These are cases involving allegations of sexual misconduct of various kinds, most of which involve course content or off-color language.
Patricia Adler, Professor Emeritus, University of Colorado (sociology) and Peter Adler, Professor Emeritus, Universe of Denver (sociology)
Teresa Buchanan, formerly of Louisiana State University (child and family studies)
Robert Frodeman, formerly of the University of North Texas (philosophy)
Dennis Gouws, Professor, Springfield College (English)
David Porter, formerly of Berea College (psychology)
Buddy Ullman, formerly of Oregon Health & Science University (biochemistry and molecular biology)
Dave Wiley, formerly of Southwestern Texas State University (health education)
Nicholas H. Wolfinger, Professor, University of Utah (sociology)
2) Race and Ethnicity
These are cases involving allegations of racism or racial insensitivity.
Lee Jussim, Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University (psychology) and Nathan Honeycutt, Research Fellow, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (psychology)
Patanjali Kambhampati, Professor, McGill University (chemistry)
Jason Kilborn, Professor, University of Illinois (law)
Liam O’Mara IV, formerly of Chapman University (history)
Mark Mercer, Professor, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia (philosophy)
Steven Porter, Professor, North Carolina State University (higher education)
Elizabeth Weiss, Professor Emeritus, San Jose State University (anthropology)
Frances Widdowson, formerly of Mount Royal University (economics)
3) Religion and Politics
These cases involve allegations of religious insensitivity, including allegations of anti-Semitism or anti-Christian bias, or investigations fueled by political pressure.
Fawzia Afzal-Khan, University Distinguished Professor, Montclair State University (English)
Abdul Jabbar, Professor Emeritus, San Francisco City College (English and interdisciplinary studies)
Deandre Pool, Senior Instructor, Florida Atlantic University (communication and multimedia studies)
Jaime Scholnick, formerly of Cal Poly Pomona (visual arts)
