May Update from the AFA
Defending a Professor Punished for a Tweet
The AFA sent a letter to Columbia University this month in favor of Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman, a tenured professor and department chair who was punished in 2022 over an instance of extramural speech. In February 2022, he posted on Twitter an attempt at praise for South Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech that struck many as offensive. As a result, Dr. Lieberman, considered one of the leading psychiatrists in the nation, was suspended as chair of the department of psychiatry and removed from his position as psychiatrist-in-chief at Columbia University Irving Medical Center/New York Presbyterian Hospital.
As our letter stated, “[S]uch a social media post is a form of what the American Association of University Professors calls ‘extramural speech.’ Extramural speech is a protected form of freedom of expression. … Private speech, on a variety of public topics, can sometimes be ill-considered or subject to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. It can sometimes give offense, whether by design or unintentionally. We do not hold such extramural speech to the standards that we would properly expect from speech in the classroom or from scholarly research.”
“We assume that the actions taken against him and the passage of over three years during which his replacement was appointed, preclude his restoration to his leadership positions. However, at the very least he should be allowed to resume his scholarly, research, and clinical activities. Dr. Lieberman should be provided with access to the gift and research funds previously available to him enabling him to hire a research assistant, and he should be given an appropriate office and laboratory space.”
The Trump Administration and Academic Freedom
The Academic Freedom Podcast is out in full force this month with three timely conversations on the implications of recent policies from the Trump administration.
Keith Whittington sat down with Daniel Hemel, professor of law at New York University Law School, to discuss the Trump administration’s threat to strip Harvard University of its tax-exempt status and the implications of the tax code for the workings of American universities. Hemel has expertise in taxation, nonprofit organizations, and constitutional law.
Next, we featured a conversation with Cass Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard Law School, to unpack the legal and constitutional questions raised by the withholding of federal grants from schools like Columbia and Harvard to force internal policy reforms.
Finally, Keith was joined by Eugene Volokh, the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, to discuss the administration’s decision to revoke Harvard’s certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, causing international students enrolled at Harvard to lose their student visas.
You can stream these episodes on our website and on most major podcasting platforms.
Membership Updates
We added four new members since our last update for a total membership of 928. We would like to surpass 1000 members this year and appreciate any and all recommendations from our current members that may help us meet that goal. Please send any nominations to AFA Director of Operations Howard Muncy at hmuncy@academicfreedom.org.
The AFA is continuing to fund our existing cases while monitoring a couple of new issues. As we expand our membership and casework, we’re grateful to everyone who has donated to our organization and hope our members and friends will consider contributing here. We could not do our work without your generous support.