The Point: A Bad Week for Academic Freedom
9/18/2025
This week’s Point is written by Steve Striffler, Professor of Labor Studies. As always, The Point represents the views of the author and is not the official position of the FSU.
Dating back at least to the 1960s, university administrators have not had a particularly strong record when it comes to defending academic freedom and free speech on our campuses. Not only has their “defense” of such freedoms tended to crumble under the slightest political pressure, but in helping make the nation’s professoriate more precarious administrators have laid the groundwork that has made these crackdowns possible (i.e. by weakening tenure protections, hiring fewer faculty with tenure, etc.).
Although it has a longer history, the current era of administrative malpractice in this area began during the Biden administration with the draconian response to pro-Palestine protests at campuses throughout the country in 2024. For a second, it seemed as though the administrative disciplining of campus free speech was going to be limited largely to students, many of whom were suspended or expelled, but tenured faculty, and even university Presidents, have lost their jobs and faced other discipline for criticizing Israel (while universities seized the opportunity to limit speech more broadly, including our own). With Trump, the ongoing attacks were then infused with a frontal assault on immigrants. Foreign students and faculty who supported Palestine had their visas revoked and/or were kidnapped right off the streets, including right here in Boston.
It is now clear (and kind of always was) that Trump never intended the issue of Palestine to be the sole vehicle through which his administration would diminish the nation’s universities. The first, almost immediate, pivot focused on DEI programs and research funding, but now seems to be broadening. And far too many university administrations are jumping on board.
To be sure, the disciplining of educators who speak out about Palestine continues, even at unionized CUNY where so many faculty have been made expendable through short-term contracts that purging them can be done without so much as an explanation. But avoiding the topic of Palestine hardly keeps one safe, if it ever did. Last week, one of the first weeks of the academic year, was particularly bad – and likely a sign of things to come.
On September 9th, Texas A & M fired Melissa McCoul, a professor who was teaching a course on children’s literature and had the audacity to discuss gender and sexuality – and was videotaped while doing so. Her notice of termination alleged she was “repeatedly” instructed to alter the course “to align with the course description, that was originally submitted and approved.” According to her lawyer, however, the “course content was entirely consistent with the catalog and course description, and she was never instructed to change her content in any way, shape, or form.” There was, as seems to be the norm in these cases, nothing resembling due process, in part because the rationale for her termination appears to be one university administrators crafted when pressured by Texas politicians to fire McCoul.
A day later, Tom Alter, a tenured professor (and excellent labor historian) at Texas State University, was fired just three days after talking (and being recorded by a right-wing troll) at a Revolutionary Socialism Conference, where he pointed out that the US government is “blood thirsty, “profit driven,” and should be hypothetically overthrown. Fiery statements indeed, but nonetheless protected by the First Amendment – not to mention that he was speaking his mind at a non-academic conference (and not representing the university).
We might dismiss this as just a bad/typical week in Texas, but at the end of the week UC-Berkeley acknowledged that it had turned over the names of 160 students, faculty, and staff who had been named in documents as part of its effort to comply with the federal government’s investigation of alleged antisemitism. As one person noted, it was somewhat ironic that the Chancellor had talked such a tough game in front of Congress and then secretly coughed up so many names to the Trump administration.
It did not end there. In the very same week, following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, faculty and staff at schools and universities throughout the country found themselves facing swift termination or discipline upon sharing opinions on social media or in class. The numbers will no doubt grow. Powerful figures on the right are demanding university administrators immediately discipline/fire faculty and staff who say anything they deem “inappropriate” – and many university administrators are capitulating. Clemson suspended a professor after politicians pressured the university administration. Two faculty members at East Tennessee State were placed on administrative leave, while Middle Tennessee State fired a staff member, as did the University of Mississippi when one re-shared something that apparently required immediate termination. Florida refused to be outdone. In a preemptive effort to censor, the state’s Department of Education sent out a memo, threatening anyone who commented on Kirk’s death in a way that they considered inappropriate. Oklahoma followed suit. And so on.
There are, of course, subtle differences between these various cases, many of which will no doubt play out in the courts. Some faculty have, for example, been targeted because of speech tied more closely to their academic work while others have come under attack for what might be considered “extramural” speech (though the lines between the two can be quite blurry). What has remained fairly consistent, however, aside from the lack of due process and the willingness of administrators to discipline faculty/staff when faced with the slightest bit of political pressure, is a fairly concerted effort by “right-wing activists” to target educators by videotaping them or capturing their social media posts – and then circulating such speech as widely as possible with the intention of making their lives miserable, silencing them, and getting them fired. Indeed, although Kirk himself did not invent this tactic, his organization – Turning Point USA – certainly popularized and professionalized it with its “Professor Watchlist,” something that his supporters seem committed to continuing and expanding after his death (https://www.charliesmurderers.com/).
In the coming weeks, The Point will continue to not only monitor attacks on academic freedom, but explore how the MTA and WE – as faculty, staff, and students – can support each other, even if/when our administration does not. Stay tuned!
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The committee for this year’s The Point currently includes Jessica Holden, Healey Library; Nick Juravich, History; Jeff Melnick, American Studies; and Steve Striffler, Labor Studies. If you want to join our committee, write an edition of The Point, or if you just have an idea, please write us at fsu@umb.edu.