{"id":437,"date":"2026-06-16T18:39:30","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T18:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pioneerrelocationnews.com\/?p=437"},"modified":"2026-06-16T18:39:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T18:39:30","slug":"unmasking-naming-and-shaming-this-academic-freedom-group-is-pushing-for-campus-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pioneerrelocationnews.com\/?p=437","title":{"rendered":"‘Unmasking, Naming, and Shaming’: This Academic Freedom Group Is Pushing for Campus Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A premier institution dedicated to advancing academic freedom is <\/span>reportedly<\/span> working to limit free speech on college campuses.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In February 2024, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which sets professional standards in higher education, launched the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF). The center, according to its <\/span>mission statement<\/span>, is “<\/span>committed to preserving and expanding conditions that make it possible to work, teach, learn, create, and share knowledge in ways that promote the common good.”<\/span><\/p>\n

But <\/span>new revelations<\/span> from <\/span>City Journal<\/span><\/i> indicate that the CDAF is not living up to its name; instead, its membership has taken a rather narrow view of what knowledge and which methods “promote the common good”\u2014especially at <\/span>civics centers<\/span> designed to bring viewpoint diversity to campus.<\/span><\/p>\n

“If we’re thinking about a five-year research agenda,” CDAF director and Trinity College professor Isaac Kamola said in a March 2025 <\/span>meeting<\/span> unveiled through <\/span>City Journal<\/span><\/i>‘s public records request,<\/span>\u00a0“I think unmasking, naming and shaming, and just increasing the political costs and decreasing the legitimacy of these centers is going to be really important.”<\/span><\/p>\n

What could lead a group, nominally dedicated to defending academic freedom, to attack centers of classical and Enlightenment thought? Power and politics, of course.<\/span><\/p>\n

In that March meeting, <\/span>Barrett Taylor, a CDAF fellow and professor of higher education at the University of North Texas, <\/span>said<\/span> that the establishment of civics centers “undercuts our ability to make” process arguments. If the centers began to assert their own institutional autonomy, Taylor said, then some critic might wonder, “Why do you want your faculty to be in charge of the curriculum but not theirs?”<\/span><\/p>\n

With no principled answer to give, the CDAF appears ready to torpedo the reputation of these centers\u2014in the name of academic freedom.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Still, the legitimacy of civics centers\u2014which are often created or backed by <\/span>right<\/span>–<\/span>leaning<\/span> state<\/span> legislatures<\/span> or <\/span>conservative donors<\/span>\u2014may deserve questioning. When partisan politicians engage in the direct management of public institutions of higher education, bias and censorship <\/span>are often the result<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it doesn’t look like the CDAF is conducting an honest audit of the centers’ efficacy. Instead, it has recognized them as a threat to higher education’s progressive status quo\u2014a status quo whose protection seems to be the CDAF’s true priority.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the same meeting, Eli Meyerhoff, a CDAF fellow and a visiting scholar at Duke University, outlined his vision for the AAUP over the next five years. He <\/span>saw the organization<\/span> “becoming more like a union,” where “the holder of academic freedom is more like a worker and less like a professional.” Under this system, limits on academic freedom would be determined by “strong, democratically run unions” consisting of students, faculty, and staff at individual universities.<\/span><\/p>\n

The AAUP did not respond to <\/span>Reason<\/span><\/i>‘s request for comment on whether the CDAF members’ statements were representative of its present or future approach to safeguarding academic freedom. But, given higher education’s <\/span>lack of political diversity<\/span>, decisions made by “strong, democratically run unions” could only ever be expected to punish conservative academics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, in an October 2024 <\/span>meeting<\/span>, CDAF fellow John Warner (a writer on faculty at the College of Charleston) called the <\/span>suspension<\/span> of controversial University of Pennsylvania law professor <\/span>Amy Wax<\/span> “an example of the process of academic freedom.” Free speech groups, including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, <\/span>criticized<\/span> the university for “ignor[ing] the difference between protected expression and punishable misconduct,” and <\/span>said<\/span> that Wax’s case “is academic freedom’s canary in the coal mine.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The warning seems to have been well-founded. <\/span>The CDAF\u2014backed by such an influential organization as the AAUP\u2014has devoted itself to defending a liberal orthodoxy which, in the name of community-sanctioned “process,” has <\/span>expelled dissidents<\/span> and <\/span>disciplined infidels<\/span> with abandon. True academic freedom is in need of more principled defenders.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Internal discussions show members of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom planning to undermine civics centers that promote viewpoint diversity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":436,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-freedom"],"yoast_head":"\n'Unmasking, Naming, and Shaming': This Academic Freedom Group Is Pushing for Campus Censorship - Pioneer Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pioneerrelocationnews.com\/?p=437\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"'Unmasking, Naming, and Shaming': This Academic Freedom Group Is Pushing for Campus Censorship - 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