In Praise of Academic Freedom

At this moment, we are seeing unprecedented attacks on higher education across the country, and the value of—and right to—academic freedom is being called into question. This is to the detriment of all of us.

Academic freedom means faculty can teach and perform research without undue interference, unfettered by forces that would stifle or censor their ideas. It is what allows faculty to do their most dynamic and creative work—and this is central to making our system of higher education the best in the world.

What’s more, they are using their expertise and insights to engage in public discourse, crucial at a time when some seek to encourage public distrust of higher education.

That is why we are providing our faculty with resources to help them contribute their knowledge to public forums. This is a particular focus of our Susan L. Wagner ’82 Centers for Wellesley in the World, which provide research accelerator and incubator funds to support scholarship that tackles global challenges and offer faculty tools and platforms to enable them to share their work more broadly.

For example, the Wagner Centers are connecting faculty with the OpEd Project, whose mission is to increase the diversity of voices represented in opinion forums. Through the project’s highly respected writing workshops, more faculty will be better positioned to share their expertise well beyond campus.

The centers will also soon finalize plans to partner with The Conversation, an international nonprofit news platform that focuses on using academic research to inform public debate. The organization will train our faculty in public writing and provide on-campus editorial support so that a wider audience can learn from their work.

Many of our faculty are already engaged in this kind of outreach. Phillip Levine, Katharine Coman and A. Barton Hepburn Professor of Economics, has been raising alarm bells about the enormous financial impact of federal funding cuts and the danger of an increased endowment tax on universities. A higher endowment tax, he writes, would weaken leading institutions and damage the broader economy.

Lamiya Mowla ’13, assistant professor of astronomy, is a vocal champion of science. She led a team of astronomers who were the first to capture images of the stunning Firefly Sparkle galaxy, giving us “an unprecedented picture of what our own galaxy might have looked like when it was being born,” she told media. We need voices like hers to remind us of the inherent value—and beauty—of discovery.

James “Jay” Morton Turner, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Environmental Studies, is a leading expert on how tariffs will deter companies from making large investments in climate technology, as well as how to make a clean energy transition. He was recently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, bringing even greater visibility to his work.

In her book We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance, Kellie Carter Jackson, Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor of Africana Studies, explores the ways Black Americans’ refusals of injustice have shaped our national story. She is a sought-after commentator on race and history at a time when those narratives are too often being dismissed.

As these examples demonstrate, Wellesley is more than just a college. It’s an intervention in the world. Our faculty are central to fulfilling that ideal, reminding us all why we must stand firm in support of academic freedom and all it affords us.