Professors Speak Out: The Truth about Campus Investigations

by Nicholas H Wolfinger (Editor)

Overview

Professors Speak Out showcases the stories of 22 faculty members from various fields, all of whom have been investigated by their own colleges or universities. These disturbing narratives reflect the growing frequency of absurd campus investigations, which often result from the expression of disfavored opinions—opinions that should be protected by free speech rights and longstanding principles of academic freedom. Some of the contributors paid the ultimate price, the loss of a tenured faculty position. Many others learned that the investigation itself is the punishment, with chilled speech an inevitable byproduct. By providing a badly needed platform for persecuted voices in contemporary academia, this unique volume exposes the grave injustice that confronts faculty members today and calls into serious question the twisted bureaucratic processes that give rise to such investigations. Taken together, the stories told here show how a new campus McCarthyism is assailing academic freedom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781680535570
Publisher:	Academica Press
Publication date:	03/11/2025
Pages:	410
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.84(d)

About the Author

NICHOLAS H. WOLFINGER is Professor of Family & Consumer Studies and Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the University of Utah.

Editorial Reviews

The testimonies in this important book provide a painful window onto the current state of our campuses. The authors’ stories deserve careful, public discussion, the result of which, we can only hope, will be real change.”

– Joshua T. Katz, Senior Fellow, The American Enterprise Institute, formerly Cotsen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics, Princeton University

“Too many elite colleges have betrayed their own commitments to due process, free speech, and basic fairness. This book is an important exposé from those who have witnessed this unfairness firsthand: the professors. Read them in their own words; it’s a vital effort to set the record straight.”

– Robby Soave, Senior Editor, Reason

“Having gone through an academic inquisition myself, I know all too well the perils the brave souls featured here went through. Like a samizdat collection from the gulag, their stories illustrate the illiberal takeover of higher education by political commissars and other apparatchiks.”

– Ilya Shapiro, Senior Fellow and Director of Constitutional Studies, Manhattan Institute

“I have read fairly widely studies of current challenges of higher education. This is the first to bring home the individual tragedies of professors caught up in the contemporary politicization of colleges and universities.”

– Paul M. Sniderman, Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy, Stanford University

From the Publisher