STANDING UP FOR INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE:

One of the greatest threats to intellectual freedom on campus is having tenured full-professors who are afraid to speak up because of fear of administrative censorship and that has resulted in UT acquiescence to the Tennessee legislature, said Mary McAlpin, a professor of modern languages and literature and one of Monday’s speakers, who encouraged faculty members to be advocates for the issues they believe in.

“Tenure is a privilege and like all privileges it comes with related responsibility,” McAlpin said. “It allows us to participate in shared governance with our administrators and to hold them accountable.”

But that’s not the only thing that tenured full professors are afraid of. I know several at the University of Tennessee who have said they’re afraid to admit they support Trump, or oppose Black Lives Matter, and don’t like the way the university administration has reacted on either front. But one nice thing about increased legislative interest in what happens at universities is that it reminds people of the importance of academic freedom, something that in many places seemed forgotten — or actively disparaged — back when everything was leftist hegemony.

But I certainly think that faculty members should be “advocates for the issues they believe in,” and I certainly intend to keep that up.