Academic Freedom After September 11

Are the attacks on academic freedom after 9/11 a passing storm, or do they representa structural shift that undermines one of the pillars of democratic societies? This book bringstogether some of this nation's leading scholars to analyze the challenges to academic freedom posedby post-9/11 political interventions and the market-driven commercialization of knowledge, examiningthese issues in light of the major transformations in the system of higher education since theSecond World War, including conflicting interpretations of what constitutes academicfreedom.Following an analysis of the historical significance of the post-9/11 threats to academicfreedom, three strongly argued and not easily reconcilable essays by Robert Post, Judith Butler, andPhilippa Strum discuss what visions of academic freedom can be defended and the best strategies fordoing so. Three case studies--Kathleen J. Frydl on the loyalty-oath and free-speech controversies atthe University of California, Amy Newhall on the tortured relationship between universities and thegovernment as seen in language acquisition programs, and Joel Beinin on the policing of thought inthe academy in relation to the Middle East--deepen our understanding of what is at stake.In clearand powerful prose, these essays provide a solid platform for informed classroom and publicdiscussions on the philosophical foundations, institutional practices, and political dimensions ofacademic freedom on the threshold of the twenty-first century.

Beshara Doumani is Professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 and editor of Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property and Gender.