Academic institutions – from kindergartens to universities – have become the starting point for growing ideological divisions in American society. Academic freedom is seen as under threat by individuals on both sides of the ideological spectrum, from conservatives who argue that liberals are “hostile” to free speech from conservative voices to liberals who watch state legislatures ban the teaching of certain concepts, such as the “don’t say gay” bill recently passed by the Florida legislature and signed by the governor.

Recent events have certainly underscored why academic freedom is essential to a free and educated society. State officials who seek to whitewash American history and avoid discussions of structural racism, sexism, and the legacy of slavery are making a blatant effort to censor classroom content. In Florida, the state has even sought to block professors from speaking out as individuals on political issues on which they have unique expertise.

Yet academic freedom, like so many other ideological principles, can be manipulated, misunderstood, and distorted. Even more than the fundamental notion of freedom of expression, academic freedom can become a powerful weapon to be used against vulnerable populations. Why? Because on the other side of a professor claiming academic freedom, there may be a student – a student who is not tenured, who must rely on that professor for a grade, and who may be emotionally, intellectually, or professionally harmed by the teacher’s exercise of the power he holds.

Take the case of Nicholas Meriwether, a philosophy professor at Shawnee State University, a public university in Ohio, who cited his religious beliefs as the reason for refusing to recognize a transgender student’s pronouns despite repeated requests from the student to be correctly identified. It was, according to Meriwether, his academic freedom.

To be clear, Meriwether wasn’t leading a discussion on transgender rights, nor was pronoun use or gender identity a topic of discussion in her class. Rather, he believed that his personal judgment as to a student’s gender was absolute and that his right to speak out on the matter was absolutely protected. Shawnee State just settled a lawsuit Meriwether filed against the university for $400,000.

For some, these examples lead to a jarring conflict between the desire to support academic freedom and to limit it. Yet it is possible to support the right of faculty to teach critical race theory and the university’s right to require professors to recognize a student’s gender identity, if one understands the origin and purpose of the doctrine.

Historically, academic freedom was meant to protect professors researching and teaching on subjects for which they had unique expertise as “professional researchers.” The 1915 Statement on the Principles of Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure of the American Association of University Teachers noted that academic freedom protections for these professional scholars carried an important responsibility. According to the AAUP, conclusions proposed by researchers must be “obtained by the method of a researcher and held in the mind of a researcher.” The controversy was a matter to be explored on the basis of scholarship and education and was intended to invite discussion and further exploration. When expressing controversial opinions, the professor must “explain fairly, without suppression or insinuation, the divergent opinions of other researchers; it should familiarize its students with the best published expressions of the major historical types of doctrine on the issues involved.

Academic freedom was not meant to turn teachers into oracles, with the right to do or say whatever they wanted. It was intended to protect the controversial ideas held by professional academics while they taught students these controversial topics. While reiterating the principles of academic freedom in 1940, the AAUP stated, “Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom to discuss their subject, but they must be careful not to introduce into their teaching subjects controversies that have no connection with their subject”. An English teacher is not allowed to use their classroom as a platform to teach QAnon. A teacher cannot use a course on teaching material to advance his religious beliefs.

I propose that this history, and subsequent legal interpretations of the concept, point to three fundamental pillars for understanding the limits of academic freedom. First, academic freedom in the classroom must be understood as protecting speech that is relevant to the subject of the classroom. Teachers are not oracles or gods. They are professional academics, specializing in a particular subject, and the protection of their speech should be limited on that basis.

Second, when it comes to expertise, we need to separate subject matter expertise from pedagogical expertise. Although it may shock some to learn, many teachers have little or no training or understanding of the science of teaching and learning. Unlike high school teachers, who receive hundreds of hours of training and in-service training on how to teach, many faculty members bring nothing but subject matter expertise to their classroom. For this reason, when it comes to pedagogical techniques, academic freedom does not allow a teacher to do what he wants in the classroom, especially if his judgment of what is “good for students” may cause prejudice. important. Thus, academic freedom did not—and should not—protect a college basketball coach who believed that using the N-word was an appropriate way to motivate players.

Third, academic freedom must be understood as protecting speech on matters of public interest, not private convictions, religious beliefs, or personal vendettas. While Professor Meriwether certainly has the right to hold religious beliefs regarding a student’s gender identity and to speak out on these issues outside of the classroom, academic freedom does not protect expression. personal religious beliefs in the classroom and certainly not when the expression of those beliefs may cause emotional harm to his students.

Together, these pillars provide a clear foundation for understanding where academic freedom does not exist and where speech in the classroom may be restricted to protect the educational opportunities of all students.

Applying these pillars to the Meriwether case would have led to a markedly different legal result. In siding with Meriwether, a federal appeals court presumed outright that Meriwether’s academic freedom gave him the unlimited right to determine course pedagogy. The court then assumed that because Meriwether had unlimited control over the how, he should also have complete control over the what, rejecting Shawnee State’s argument that “the use of pronouns has nothing to do with with the interests of academic freedom in the background of classroom instruction. and instead noting that “Any teacher will tell you that choices about how to lead a class discussion hugely shape the content of teaching.”

The court added that gender identity is “a highly contentious issue of public interest that comes up ‘often’ in class discussions in Meriwether’s political philosophy classes” and found that Meriwether’s view on the use of pronouns “could have catalyzed a solid and insightful class discussion.” This alone, according to the court, allowed his view to protect – even though Meriwether did not claim that a discussion of the use of pronouns ever took place in this particular class. The court seems to suggest that if the subject of gender identity is a contested issue in American society, the professor has unlimited discretion to advance his adjacent religious belief (regarding the use of pronouns) in the manner that he deems it appropriate whether or not it has anything to do with a real class discussion.

This unlimited discretion cannot be what academic freedom demands. Using the same logic, an American history professor with religiously based sexual beliefs might refuse to call female students whether or not a class discussion stems from the practice.

To be clear, the court also considered whether Meriwether’s interest in having her speech protected outweighed any state interest in restricting her speech. Yet again, the court made a glaring error. He surmised that because the student in the case was an ‘active participant’ in the class and received a ‘high grade’, she was not harmed. This conclusion is deeply flawed. The emotional damage suffered by a student cannot be assessed simply by referring to outward signs of success. In fact, studies suggest that gender identity can have profound repercussions, including significant psychological distress and feelings of stigma.

The right of professional scholars to instruct on controversial topics relevant to their courses should be protected, not because they are oracles, but because they are experts who play a unique and important role in a free society. . To suggest that professors are protected regardless of their subject and expertise is a perversion of the original goal of academic freedom and will only widen ideological divides about the proper role and power of higher education in our society. .