R: Tolerate Extremism in the Academy

It has become an almost universal rally cry of conservatives: “we demand academic freedom.” The number of tenured positions at major universities— positions that protect academic freedom— are falling sharply. It seems all too common that public outcry over a professor’s justifiably or unjustifiably branded “extreme” remarks leads to a firing and a fall from grace. It seems that complete academic freedom, even insofar as it tolerates extremism, is utterly essential in the Academy. Yet, is it not that very freedom that has led it to this moment? Was not the extremist philosophy that calls ideas injurious, words violent, and friendly colloquy painful born in the Academy? Was this philosophy not the beneficiary of academic freedom? 

At the time this resolution was proffered, the debate surrounding the teaching of “Critical Race Theory” primary public educational institutions was raging. This theory was itself born in the University and was a beneficiary of academic freedom. The bioethical theories that have allowed and encouraged embryonic stem cell research were developed in the University. Much of this research itself has also been conducted primarily in academic institutions. The reason so many philosophy departments in universities across the country have been able to reject the study of the ancients and medievals in favor of the moderns is this extensive academic freedom. A requirement that universities teach the classics and scholastics would certainly limit academic freedom, but it would eliminate the extreme steps some universities have taken to destroy their classics departments and drive out their Thomists with a fire poker.

Even so, perhaps the Academy should protect and tolerate extremism at all costs. Or is it the case that the unencumbered freedom to cast away the old is itself responsible for the chilling effect on us Federalists in the Academy?