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Academic Freedom, Intellectual Diversity, And The Place Of Politics In Geography, Reecia Orzeck

Faculty Publications-- Geography, Geology, and the Environment

This paper examines the conservative critique of higher education in the USA. I argue, first, that the right's call for greater “intellectual diversity” in American higher education should be understood as an attack on the professional self-regulation and disciplinary autonomy that are central to academic freedom in this country. Second, I suggest that the right's politicization of politics in the academy brings to light the importance of our developing a vision of the university that accounts for rather than disavows the political nature of the work we do.