One front in the Republicans’ war against higher education is their attack on academic freedom. At the federal level, the Trump administration’s so-called Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education would make access to some funding contingent on “transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” And more than 20 Republican-led states have passed laws restricting classroom discussions of race, gender and American history. Such actions rest on a fundamental misunderstanding of what happens and what should happen in college classes.
The value of academic freedom is typically predicated on two claims. First, universities are centers of intellectual inquiry, and the knowledge they produce helps to improve society. Academic research leads to more advanced medical technologies, more informed public policies, more enriching cultural products and in general a better understanding of the world, so academics should be left alone to do their work.
Republican ideologues focus on this part of the academic mission. They assume that professors bring their research into the classroom and tell students what to believe. Educational theorist Paolo Freire calls this the “banking model” of education. In this view, teachers are truth-givers who deposit facts into students’ heads so they can make a withdrawal later by asking them to repeat those facts on tests.
Some conservatives assume that students are being indoctrinated in left-wing orthodoxy, so they put forward “alternative truths.” The call to bring back “classical education” means teaching American history through a nationalist lens. This tradition goes back to William F. Buckley Jr., who, in “God and Man at Yale,” argued that traditional American values — individualism, Christianity and capitalism — should be assumed at the outset by every discipline.
By focusing on the goal of higher education, right-wing politicians ignore the second value that grounds academic freedom: Academics discover truth by using discipline-specific methods, so they should be free to define their work independently of political intrusion. Professors teach students these methods in the classroom. For example, the empirical sciences are not defined by a set of facts, which changes over time, but by the scientific method, which tests hypotheses, falsifying some and making others more likely by surviving repeated attempts at falsification. Learning how to solve problems, rather than learning others’ established answers, equips budding scientists to discover new facts, economists to understand markets better, and teachers to develop more effective pedagogical techniques.
A recent controversy at the University of Oklahoma is illustrative. In a psychology class, the assignment was to analyze an empirical study on “gender typicality, peer relations and mental health.” A student was failed on a paper in which she claimed that “the lie that there are multiple genders” is “demonic,” and she cited only the Bible as a source. Outside of the classroom, people can believe whatever they want, and for any reason. However, educators are supposed to hold students to disciplinary standards because knowledge claims cannot be justified without subjecting them to verification procedures. Psychology explains mental phenomena with neurochemistry and environmental stimuli, not demons. It tests empirical claims with structured observations and experiments, not the Bible. No one was telling the student what to believe, only how to justify beliefs when doing psychology.
Although professors have to set out some uncontroversial facts — the function of DNA, historical timelines, and so on — the typical college class, especially when discussing contentious issues, looks more like Freire’s “problem-posing model,” which emphasizes dialogue over lecturing, opening up discussion to the critical evaluation of different views. Research shows that academic involvement results not in liberal indoctrination but in more moderate views among both liberals and conservatives, because both are challenged to reevaluate beliefs they had not previously had to justify. By empowering students to take responsibility for their beliefs, higher education produces citizens who can actively participate in the marketplace of ideas.
To resist right-wing threats to academic freedom, universities should emphasize the skills that students develop more than the knowledge they gain. Outside of class, academics do research that advances their fields and contributes to the common good. In class, the process is the goal. Teachers focus on problem-solving, which helps students not only to succeed professionally but also to navigate an ever-changing world.
