By Jenna Somers
Last year, by The Washington Post showed that Tennessee had passed more laws targeting educational institutions than any other state. Among these laws are , commonly known as the āprohibited concepts law,ā and , otherwise known as the āAge-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022.ā Both laws apply to K-12 education. regulates the promotion of ādivisive conceptsā in state institutions of higher education. Laws very similar to these , leaving many K-12 educators with questions about the effects of these laws on classroom instruction and materials and higher education faculty to wonder about impacts to academic freedom.
On July 25, the Tennessee Education Association and five teachers filed a against the Tennessee Department of Education and the Tennessee State Board of Education challenging Public Chapter No. 493 as unconstitutionally vague and subjectively enforced.
While the lawsuit progresses through the legal system, faculty-experts at 91ĢĘ²®»¢ Universityās and are working together to provide clarity on Tennesseeās laws targeting K-12 instruction and materials. For the past two years, they have engaged in edifying discussions and collaborations with teachers, students, preservice teachers, and education leaders to support classroom instruction and educational leadership.
These conversations and collaborations are predicated on academic freedom, a well-established principal in higher education intended, in part, to protect the creation and dissemination of knowledge. As laws and bills like Public Chapter 818 are enacted and introduced in other state houses, the history of academic freedom in America may shed light on the conceptās purpose and support debates in legislatures across the country.
āFor all students, everywhereā
āLiterature transforms human experience and reflects it back to us, and in that reflection, we can see our own lives and experiences as part of the larger human experience. Reading, then, becomes a means of self-affirmation, and readers often seek their mirrors in books.ā āRudine Sims Bishop, 1990, āā
āRudine Bishopās essay, has been our mantra when we talk to teachers about the kinds of books to include in their classrooms, making sure that their classroom libraries are populated with books that reflect the children they teach. And now, within the past couple years, books that deal with identity are under increased scrutiny, and weāve had to consider how these laws might affect teachers,ā said , professor of the practice of literacy.
That consideration led Kissel and his faculty colleagues in the and at 91ĢĘ²®»¢ Law School to collaborate on annual informational and brainstorming meetings with preservice teachers, Peabody alumni educators, Metro Nashville Public Schools educators, parents, and other interested parties. Held on Peabodyās campus, the meetings have included expert panel presentations with Law School faculty members as well as breakout sessions. , assistant professor of law, spoke on the panel at this yearās meeting, āTennessee Laws and Education.ā
āPeople who evaluate teachers for compliance with the law should be the ones responsible for telling teachers how to comply,ā Shaw said, suggesting that teachers request detailed instructions from their local and state boards of education on the application of laws in their classrooms. āTeachers working together can influence curriculum change, but itās got to be done collectively, not unilaterally. They have to do this in conversation with school districts, parents, students, and legislators.ā
Additionally, Shaw says that all stakeholders need to work together on building a common understanding of education pluralism. āWe need to have a better, bigger conversation on what education pluralism is and not just use it as a convenient buzz word to oppose laws, but to have a broader conversation about what education is, what it hasnāt been, and what it should be. For all students, everywhere,ā Shaw said.
“We need to have a… broader conversation about what education is, what it hasn’t been, and what it should be. For all students, everywhere.”
Some of these broader conversations about education occur in Peabody courses taught by Kissel and , associate professor of the practice of literacy education. In these courses, preservice teachers read and analyze Tennesseeās education laws as well as ancillary materials (e.g. expert analyses and news articles) to understand the laws on paper and in practice. Kissel and Pendergrass want preservice teachers at Peabody to feel confident about providing an inclusive and diverse education for all students. In Pendergrassā childrenās literature course, her students walk through the process of appealing a book ban to understand the necessary steps and supporting documents to include in their rationales.
Pendergrass also collaborated on the āTennessee Laws and Educationā meeting, and she and Shaw participated in a in September 2022; Pendergrass also moderated the October 2023 . āPeabody is good about collectively discussing critical questionsāif you donāt understand, ask, and letās figure it out together. We do a lot of that in our classes and workshops, asking questions like, āWhy is this happening,ā or āWhatās going on in the world,ā and āConsider how this influences the classroom,āā Pendergrass said.
Underpinning these conversations at Peabody is the principle of academic freedom, which safeguards the free exchange of ideas in higher education and has long been recognized by American academic professional organizations and universities as the vehicle for new discoveries, ideas, and innovations. Just as laws like Tennesseeās Public Chapters 493 and 744 have spurred questions and conversations about K-12 classroom instruction and materials, laws like Tennesseeās Public Chapter 818 may have a similar effect on academic freedom in public higher education. For example, Public Chapter 818 says that the law āshall not be interpreted toā¦infringe on the rights of academic freedom of faculty in public institutions of higher education,ā while also stating that the law applies to ātrainings,ā which are defined as āseminars, workshops, trainings, and orientations.ā Many college courses are called āseminarsā and āworkshops.ā
According to Shaw, higher education faculty, like K-12 educators, should also request clarification from people overseeing compliance. āPut the burden back on the people who are enacting, implementing, and enforcing the law,ā Shaw said. āBecause the very first question is, āCan it be done,ā before we get into, āShould it be done?ā If it canāt be done, then it doesn’t work.ā
A public trust and a common good
As policymakers and the public share an increased interest in academic freedom, they may be equally curious to learn about the earliest history that codified the concept. According to , associate professor of public policy and higher education, challenges to professorial autonomy and self-governance arose in America during the late 19th century, when universities began to create knowledge, not just preserve it, and when professors sought to strike a balance between scholarly research and social action. Ever since then, these challenges have persisted, with certain periods of history seeing increased pressures on academic freedom, including in .
In 1915, as an initial effort to safeguard the self-regulatory function of the professoriate, Edwin R.A. Seligman, Arthur O. Lovejoy, and John Dewey established the American Association of University Professors and led the effort to . The AAUP defined academic freedom as the professorās freedom to research, teach, and engage in extramural utterances and actions. This freedom was necessary for universities to perform their duties as public trusts. Faculty membersā research was intended to advance knowledge and enrich the public sphere, so, the AAUP argued, they should not feel beholden to university leaders who may seek to employ āthe power of dismissal to gratify their private antipathies and resentments.ā
āThe upshot of the AAUPās work was that it set in place definitions and ideas around academic freedom that identified it, not just as a civil right or a job perk, but an idea grounded in the larger purpose of higher education and the conditions that were required for the university to do its work as a public trust,ā Loss said. āAnd so, the AAUP focused on the scholarās profession and the freedom of the scholar to pursue their research according to the standards of their professional training.ā
In 1940, the AAUP coordinated a of the 1915 principles with the Association of American Colleges (now the Association of American Colleges and Universities), which extended the idea of the university from not only a public trust but a common good.
āItās important to keep in mind the idea of the university as a common good because it reveals the significant role of academic freedom and its relationship to our society and to our political and governing institutions, namely, that the case for academic freedom was predicated on the notion that the role of the university in training citizens and in producing research was indispensable to the common good and to the larger society. In fact, it was so indispensable that it required a level of autonomy to perform its larger purpose,ā Loss said.
In 1970, the AAUP and Association of American Colleges added interpretive comments as footnotes to the 1940 statement, partly to reflect legal developments regarding due process in the academic community. One of the AAUPās interpretive comments draws attention to the case, Keyishian v. Board of Regents, (1967), in which the Supreme Court of the United Sates identifies academic freedom as a right protected by the First Amendment: āOur nation is deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned. That freedom is therefore a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.ā
Notably, the McCarthy Era occurred between the 1940 statement and the 1970 interpretive footnotes. During this period, several public institutions demanded signed statements from their staff, including professors, asserting that they were not involved in subversive groups. Lawsuits against these demands were reviewed by the Supreme Court, which began , protected in some cases by the First Amendment. Legal challenges to academic freedom have been adjudicated in nearly every decade since the initial post-McCarthy Era cases, .
The erosion of public trust
Beyond political and legal pressures on academic freedom, there are professional pressures as well, namely, a changing labor market for the professoriate that has led to a decline in tenure . Undergirding these challenges is the erosion of public trust in higher education, which, according to Loss, is paramount to academic freedom and the capacity of universities to self-regulate.
āHistorically, a university education has provided upward mobility and a pathway to the middle class, if not beyond,ā Loss said. āBut in the past 20 years or so, that has not been the case at some institutions, especially for students of lower socioeconomic status, those who are first-generation college students, and who come from historically underrepresented groups. We also have a student debt crisis, and sixty percent of students graduate in six years, not four. These are all things that have contributed to the erosion of public trust.ā
Loss added that, although , indicate that students have grown distrustful of the classroom environment as one where they can freely share their ideas, which could reflect possible institutional and peer censorship of studentsā academic freedom.
āStudents need to feel as though, and need to know, they can share their ideas in the classroom,ā Loss said. āThat is why the university exists, to share a diverse range of ideas, to engage in civil, respectful dialogue in the classroom and around campus, including unorthodox ideas from multiple angles and perspectives. That keeps us open to the possibility of learning something new, which is the purpose of the university and of academic freedom.ā
For its part, the university launched a new initiative, , in August, with a threefold goal of promoting constructive conversation across the university, conducting research on polarization and how to address it, and leading in broader efforts to restore civil discourse in society. The project encompasses several 91ĢĘ²®»¢ initiatives related to free expression.
During the past two years, while simultaneously working on her masterās degree in education policy at Peabody College, , MPPā23, has helped lead education policy discussions in Tennessee. Powell is advocacy and partnerships manager at , where she facilitates collaborations among education advocates, policymakers, teachers, students, and parents interested in education policy and the equitable education of historically underserved students in Tennessee.