How far does the idea of academic freedom extend to professors in an era of racial reckoning?
The protests of summer 2020, which were ignited by the murder of George Floyd, led to long-overdue reassessments of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in both American academe and cultural life more generally. But while universities have been willing to rename some buildings and schools or grapple with their role in the slave trade, no one has yet asked the most uncomfortable question: Does academic freedom extend to racist professors?
It''s Not Free Speech considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Michael B-b-nd Jennifer Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy-theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. Approac
