Does Academic Freedom Protect Antisemitism?—Part II: Social Media, Antizionism, and the End of Academic Freedom
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Cary Nelson
Abstract
The rapid rise in the use of social media and in the dissemination of social media posts during the new millennium has blurred the line between professional publications and communications with the general public. The destructive effects of all forms of online hate speech, including antisemitism, have meanwhile become increasingly apparent. Yet the American Association of University Professors reacted in 2015 by declaring that all faculty statements on social media, including those within a faculty member’s areas of teaching and research, are protected from university evaluation by academic freedom. This reverses a long-standing principle that all statements in a faculty member’s areas of professional responsibility are part of his or her professional profile and subject to professional consequences and potential sanctions. Instead, racist or antisemitic social media posts are now to be deemed immune from consequences for job applicants and candidates for tenure. This development has the potential to undermine public confidence in academic freedom and in higher education’s overall ability to exercise professional judgment. A 2021 proposal went still further, arguing that a faculty member should be able to declare a specific body of work officially off limits, protected from any formal review.
© 2022 by Academic Studies Press
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Contents
- Editorial
- Theme Editorial
- THEME ARTICLES: ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS OF RUSSIAN ANTIZIONISM: SOME CONTEXT FOR TODAY’S PROPAGANDA OPERATION AGAINST UKRAINE
- Demonization Blueprints: Soviet Conspiracist Antizionism in Contemporary Left-Wing Discourse
- Durban Antizionism: Its Sources, Its Impact, and Its Relation to Older Anti-Jewish Ideologies
- GENERAL ARTICLES
- The Generalised Antisemitism (GeAs) Scale: A Questionnaire Instrument for Measuring Antisemitism as Expressed in Relation Both to Jews and to Israel
- How Users of British Media Websites Make a Bogeyman of George Soros
- Surging, Stable, or Subdued: The Jewish Perception of Antisemitism in Canada’s Southernmost Region
- Does Academic Freedom Protect Antisemitism?—Part II: Social Media, Antizionism, and the End of Academic Freedom
- Gab as Disseminator of Antisemitic Conspiracy Myths and Enabler of Offline Violence
- The Mainstreaming of American Antisemitism: The Defeat of an Ideal
- RESEARCH NOTE
- The Decoding Antisemitism Project—Reflections, Methods, and Goals
- IN MEMORIAM: PETE NEWBON, 1983–2022
- In Memory of Pete Newbon
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism. Edited by Sol Goldberg, Scott Ury, and Kalman Weiser. London: Palgrave, 2021. 354 pages. $29.99.
- Why Do People Discriminate against Jews?
- The Holocaust and North Africa
- Looking for an Enemy: 8 Essays on Antisemitism
- Israel Denial: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Faculty Campaign against the Jewish State
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelei
- Contents
- Editorial
- Theme Editorial
- THEME ARTICLES: ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY YEARS OF RUSSIAN ANTIZIONISM: SOME CONTEXT FOR TODAY’S PROPAGANDA OPERATION AGAINST UKRAINE
- Demonization Blueprints: Soviet Conspiracist Antizionism in Contemporary Left-Wing Discourse
- Durban Antizionism: Its Sources, Its Impact, and Its Relation to Older Anti-Jewish Ideologies
- GENERAL ARTICLES
- The Generalised Antisemitism (GeAs) Scale: A Questionnaire Instrument for Measuring Antisemitism as Expressed in Relation Both to Jews and to Israel
- How Users of British Media Websites Make a Bogeyman of George Soros
- Surging, Stable, or Subdued: The Jewish Perception of Antisemitism in Canada’s Southernmost Region
- Does Academic Freedom Protect Antisemitism?—Part II: Social Media, Antizionism, and the End of Academic Freedom
- Gab as Disseminator of Antisemitic Conspiracy Myths and Enabler of Offline Violence
- The Mainstreaming of American Antisemitism: The Defeat of an Ideal
- RESEARCH NOTE
- The Decoding Antisemitism Project—Reflections, Methods, and Goals
- IN MEMORIAM: PETE NEWBON, 1983–2022
- In Memory of Pete Newbon
- BOOK REVIEWS
- Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism. Edited by Sol Goldberg, Scott Ury, and Kalman Weiser. London: Palgrave, 2021. 354 pages. $29.99.
- Why Do People Discriminate against Jews?
- The Holocaust and North Africa
- Looking for an Enemy: 8 Essays on Antisemitism
- Israel Denial: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and the Faculty Campaign against the Jewish State
