Policing the Classroom: Government Mandates and Academic Freedom in Public Higher Education

As a history professor and statewide union president I have a state level perspective on government interference in the classroom. The state government, both in terms of lawmakers and appointed higher education officials, have passed legislation and policy under the guise of enforcing “impartiality” into the classrooms. The resulting policies dictate specific curriculum and content choices for professors in the humanities and social sciences favoring some ideas such as patriotism, civic literacy and the reverence for Western thought while prohibiting others such as structural racism, transgender identity and social stratification. I can speak to how professors in the state public higher education system are navigating these challenges both in the classroom and outside by organizing through their union and other systems of shared governance such as their faculty senates.