April Update from the AFA
Defending a Professor Fired Over His Nationality
On April 3, we sent a letter to the Board of Governors of the State University System of Florida regarding a professor’s firing from New College of Florida. The college reportedly terminated the professor, Kevin Wang, because of a 2023 Florida law that prohibits universities from employing people from “countries of concern,” including China. Wang is a Chinese national who sought asylum in the United States after criticizing the Chinese Communist Party.
The AFA’s letter reads, in part, “It seems evident that the legislation is aimed at the influence of foreign-controlled institutes on American college campuses. Even within the statute’s core concern, the statute grants the Board discretionary authority to approve an ‘agreement . . . with a foreign principal, if such partnership or agreement is deemed by the board to be valuable to students and the state university and is not detrimental to the safety or security of the United States or its residents.’ The Board’s guidelines indicate that ‘hiring a foreign principal for academic’ purposes requires case-by-case approval by the Board.”
AFA Members Writing Up and Speaking Out
In this contentious moment in higher education, some AFA members are writing op-eds in their personal capacities to champion and defend the principles of academic freedom.
Last month, AFA founding member Jonathan Zimmerman of the University of Pennsylvania wrote in The Times of Higher Education about the risks to the higher education system if it dismisses the many critiques against it. “We can’t comprehend the threats to universities if we dismiss every critique of them as ignorant or misguided,” he wrote. “And asking how we might have erred doesn’t empower Trump, any more than examining American foreign policy in 2001 played into the hands of al-Qaeda. We must fight threats from the outside, but also look inside to see how we can get better.”
In a similar vein, founding members Robert P. George and Cornell West co-wrote an op-ed in The Hill about how universities should respond to Trump’s attacks on academic freedom: “Rather than ignore or deny well-founded criticisms of their institutions, academic leaders should view the current moment as an opportunity for an authentic institutional examination of conscience. Universities — let’s be honest — have lost the trust of the American people. And that is the universities’ fault, not the fault of the people.”
New Milestones for AFA Media
The AFA recently celebrated a couple of new milestones in our broader effort to educate the public and spread the word on academic freedom. On X, formerly Twitter, we recently surpassed 5,000 followers and our account continues to grow steadily, with high levels of engagement.
Further, our podcast – the Academic Freedom Podcast – just surpassed 10,000 downloads. Our host, Keith Whittington, recently brought the podcast back to life after a hiatus with several notable new episodes. You can stream them on our website and on most major podcasting platforms.
Membership Updates
We added ten new members since our last update for a total membership of 924. We would like to surpass 1000 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 also looking into a handful 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.