Manufactured Controversy

As a result, not only are institutions far more susceptible to criticism and threat—administrators of course fearing threats to their bottom line—but the faculty who educate, and the students who are attempting to get an education, are put more at risk as well.

The trickling down of these financial difficulties for parents, coupled with the decade-long decline in financial aid, may put the promise of a college education out of reach for all but the most well-off students. Likewise, in short-term efforts to improve the financial position of institutions, increased reliance on part-time or contingent instructors who are paid less than their full-time counterparts is projected to have a far-reaching impact on faculty members and the quality of education. Further, all of this comes at a time when legislators and business leaders are looking more and more to higher education to improve our nation’s economic positioning.

Rather than focusing on these very real threats to higher education, the past seven years have seen legislators, trustees and administrators devote large amounts of time, focus and political capital to defending higher education from a marked increase in ideological attacks. Organizations and individuals from the far right wing—led by David Horowitz, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, and the Alliance Defense Fund—have sponsored legislation in no fewer than 30 states, have attempted to get individual professors fired, have sued numerous institutions and have run a media smear campaign with an eye toward persuading decision-makers to regulate the content of higher education and convincing the public that there is a profound problem of “liberal bias” in higher education.

Certainly, this is not the first time that higher education has endured attacks from one political group or another. No one needs to be reminded of the accusations against faculty and student organizations for being “communists” during the McCarthy era. Likewise, the conservative critique of higher education has been part and parcel of the “culture wars” in the United States for well over two decades. The inspiration for this campaign can be traced back to William F. Buckley’s seminal polemic God and Man at Yale, written in 1951.

A fever pitch of critics against higher education was heard during the late 1960s and 1970s as higher education was radically transformed by massive enrollments and the growing admissions of traditionally underrepresented populations. The movement gained renewed vigor in 1987 with the publication of Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind, and attacks on higher education have been a part of political life ever since. The attacks of the last seven years took these critiques as their battle cries but took their goal to a more disturbing place—not just attacking the academy for alleged liberal bias, but seeking government regulation of speech to change the situation.

Fortunately, the recent attacks by Horowitz and his allies largely have been seen as what they are—an attempt to insert an ideological agenda into higher education and to silence the free exchange of ideas. None of the states that saw legislation to regulate the classroom passed it into law, most of the lawsuits were settled or lost and few institutions changed any substantive campus policies.

Although formal changes to policy have been avoided, the attacks on the free exchange of ideas in higher education certainly have had an impact on the climate of campuses—from faculty members who are more reluctant to publish and speak about cutting-edge and controversial findings to administrators who are increasingly worried that allowing faculty and student speech free rein will harm

Even as the threat wanes, it is important to understand that right-wing critics of higher education are opportunistic and that so long as higher education remains the location of independent thought and vigorous debate, it will always be a target. With this in mind, the Free Exchange on Campus coalition has released a retrospective report of the most recent attacks on academic freedom and open intellectual discourse—examining the background and context of the attacks, the tactics, the network of organizations behind the attacks, and the actions that have defeated them—with an eye toward deflecting them when they arise in the future.

Click here to read the full report.

The Free Exchange on Campus Coalition is a joint effort by faculty and student groups (including Campus Progress), as well as organizations that work to protect civil liberties and academic freedom. The Free Exchange on Campus is committed to advocating for the rights of students and faculty to hear and express a full range of ideas unencumbered by political or ideological interference. You can read the latest news or find out more about the coalition at freeexchangeoncampus.org.

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