Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education

"This is the book we've been waiting for: a riveting account of the long war on academic freedom, free speech and political dissent in the academy from the standpoint of its heroic victims. Scholars engaged in the most advanced writing and activism around Black Lives Matter, Palestine solidarity, and critiques of U.S. empire testify from the front-lines of the struggle to decolonize higher education. This is the best volume we have yet exposing the sham use of 'civility' discourse to silence those who speak truth to power." -- Bill V. Mullen, Professor Emeritus of American Studies, Purdue University USA

"When people think of attacks on academic freedom, they typically envision them coming from the far right which has long sought to curtail critical thinking. This powerful and timely anthology shows that in fact the problem is much more structural--the institutional logic of the neoliberal university and its wholesale adoption of "civility" discourse pose a grave threat to free speech and academic freedom. With a focus on how scholars of color who critique structural inequities are disciplined, this book offers an invaluable analysis of the climate today for academics and what we can do to effectively teach, research and organize for social and racial justice." -- Deepa Kumar, Professor of Media Studies Rutgers University, USA

"Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education: Faculty on the Margins reminds us that academic freedom is not free. Dutt-Ballerstadt and Bhattacharya have produced a volume centering faculty and scholars who pay the price as they dare to resist, critique, and unapologetically problematize civility, free speech, and academic freedom. This book reveals how these values are often weaponized against the scholars most committed to realizing their true meaning and disrupting the status quo of brazen inequality within and beyond the academy. Readers will find this book to be a necessary and highly sought resource to generate dialogue, shift discourses, and inform praxis." -- Lori Patton Davis, Professor, The Ohio State University

"Dutt-Ballerstadt and Bhattacharya’s Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education: Faculty on the Margins shows how universities--and the outside organizations and politicians that manipulate weak administrators and the media--make a mockery of ideas of “diversity.” This volume shows the price faculty on the margins are asked to pay for remaining true to their vocation and pedagogical principles, and makes the essential point: solidarity is everything, especially in these times." -- David Palumbo-Liu, Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor, Stanford University, USA

"The academy has long prided itself as a place where open debate, critique, and diversity of ideas are welcome. However, the visceral first person accounts and the conceptual analytical essays in this volume remind us of the systemic overt and covert ways that the academy is anything but civil or accepting of free speech by faculty in the margins. The essays in Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education: Faculty on the Margins provide both comfort for faculty on the margins who have had similar experiences and conviction for university leaders who claim a commitment to both academic freedom and faculty diversity. After finishing the volume, may readers vow to do their parts to create more just higher education institutions where margins do not exist and true academic freedom is available to all faculty." -- Tamara Bertrand Jones, Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies & Associate Director for the Center for Postsecondary Success, Florida State University, USA