Focus THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION Professors and Free Speech As a Chronicle of Higher Education individual subscriber, you receive premium, unrestricted access to the entire Chronicle Focus collection. Curated by our newsroom, these booklets compile the most popular and relevant higher-education news to provide you with in-depth looks at topics affecting campuses today. The Chronicle Focus collection explores student alcohol abuse, racial tension on campuses, and other emerging trends that have a significant impact on higher education. ©2017 by The Chronicle of Higher Education Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, forwarded (even for internal use), hosted online, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For bulk orders or special requests, contact The Chronicle at [email protected] ©2017 THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION INC. TABLE OF CONTENTS n this time of strong political tensions, groups have seized on statements made by professors and taken them to task, sometimes with such vehemence that the faculty members feared for their jobs or safety. The six articles in this collec- tion describe what happened to several professors who ended up in the political cross-hairs, and how their Icolleges responded to the uproar. Who’s Left to Defend Tommy Curry? 4 A black philosopher at Texas A&M discovered an audience that did not want to hear his message. Higher Education’s Internet Outrage Machine 15 Two publications have emerged as major forces in academe’s ideological battles. Professors’ Growing Risk: Harassment for Things They Never Really Said 18 Faculty members are facing backlashes because of how conservative media characterize their views. The Far Right’s ‘New Offensive 20 Against Academia’ A professor who mocked “white genocide” in a tweet reflects on the ensuing furor. A Christian Conservative Professor 23 Accuses Colleges of Indoctrinating Students Carol Swain, a political scientist at Vanderbilt, is retiring early after students called her a bigot. What to Do When Outrage 26 Is Aimed at Your Campus How deftly colleges respond can have a major influence on how quickly storms dissipate. Cover illustration by Eric Petersen Cover photo by Eric Thayer, The New York Times 22 R EINING IN FR ATE R NITIES THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION / SEPTEMBE R 2017 ©2017 THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION INC. Tough Talk A black philosopher at Texas A&M thought forcing a public discussion about race and violence was his job. Turns out people didn’t want to hear it. By STEVE KOLOWICH Tommy J. Curry, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M, was deluged with threats and hate mail. BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN FOR THE CHRONICLE n a Thursday morning in May, Tommy As the car pulled away from campus, Mr. Curry J. Curry walked through the philoso- reread the letter and rolled his eyes. phy department’s offices at Texas A&M He has not been back since. University with a police officer at his side and violence on his mind. rofessors are being watched, followed, and OThe threats had started a few days earlier. “Since confronted. They are being brought to ac- you said white people need to be killed I’m in fear Pcount for things they said and things they did of my life,” one person had written via email. “The not say. Modern technology has turned campus next time I see you on campus I might just have to politics into a circus, and audiences come to see pre-emptively defend myself you dumb fat nigger. the freaks: the professor who thinks white-marble You are done.” statues are racist, the one who wants white geno- Mr. Curry didn’t know if that person was lurk- cide for Christmas, the one who wants to see Pres- ing on the university grounds. But Texas is a ident Trump hanged. Preening elites exposed as gun-friendly state, and Texas A&M is a gun-friend- ugly brutes. ly campus, and he took the threat seriously. Tommy Curry was the angry black one who said The professor supports the right to bear arms. It white people need to die. That was the caricature, was part of how he ended up in this situation. anyway. In 2012 he had appeared on a satellite-radio There was much more to it. The drama that un- show and delivered a five-minute talk on how un- folded at Texas A&M is about a scholar who was easy white people are with the idea of black peo- welcomed by a public university because of his ple talking about owning guns and using them to unusual perspective and who became estranged combat racist forces. from it for the same reason. It is a story about what He was right about that. When a recording of a university values, how it expresses those values the talk resurfaced in May, people thought the under pressure, and how that pressure works. It is tenured professor was telling black people to kill about freedom and control, reason and fear, good white people. It flowed swiftly through the bor- faith and bad. oughs of conservative media and into the fever Mostly, it is a story about a black man in Amer- swamps of Reddit forums and racist message ica who did exactly what he said he set out to do, boards. The threats followed. and who became a cautionary tale. Anonymous bigots weren’t the only ones mak- It starts in Lake Charles, La., where the color ing Mr. Curry feel unwanted. Michael K. Young, lines were obvious to a black kid growing up in president of Texas A&M, had called the professor’s the 1980s and ’90s. His family lived in a mostly comments “disturbing” and contrary to the values black neighborhood on the east side of the city. The of the university. Mr. Curry was taken aback. His white folks lived on the other side of the highway. remarks on the radio were not a regrettable slip of At the Woolworth store downtown, he saw the fad- the tongue. They were part of why the university ed outline of letters that remained visible on the had hired him. window glass: “No Coloreds.” A police officer met Mr. Curry inside his aca- His father sold insurance. He told Tommy sto- demic building and rode with him in the elevator ries about how white people used to break into to the philosophy department, on the third floor. black people’s homes and terrorize them. The fam- In a hallway, the professor pointed to photos of his ily kept a shotgun behind the couch, and Tommy graduate students so the police officer would know Sr. owned a pistol as well. “He constantly told us who was supposed to be there. The officer told him that there is a very real threat of white violence,” to keep an eye out for unfamiliar faces. says Mr. Curry. “The idea of black people having a Mr. Curry picked up his mail. There were a few right to defend themselves is just something I grew angry letters, and also an envelope marked with a up with.” Texas A&M logo. He put the hate mail into a folder His mother, a social worker, told him to arm and carried the whole bundle downstairs. Back in himself with an education. She and her husband the car with his wife, he opened the university en- were members of the NAACP, and they supple- velope. Inside was a copy of a letter from a campus mented Tommy’s schoolwork with books about official that he had received a few days earlier by black inventors, screenings of Roots, and talks email — before his inbox was flooded with racist about how he could expect to be judged by the col- messages. or of their skin. Tommy was a serious child who “I am delighted to offer my congratulations on hoarded information. In high school, he read the your promotion to Professor at Texas A&M Uni- fathers of critical race theory and decided he want- versity effective September 1, 2017,” said the letter. ed to be a law professor. He had issues of Socialist “This measure of your achievement is an indica- Review sent to their house. “My parents thought tor of the very high esteem in which you are held the government was going to come get me,” he says. by your peers. We are honored to have you on our Mr. Redding, who was a few years older, was faculty.” struck by the high-schooler’s confidence. “I re- OCTOBER 2017 / THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION PROFESSORS AND FREE SPEECH 5 member him coming to the debate room, and a lot would never end. of people thinking he was very bright but maybe a “The evidence of the last 50 years has convinc- little too self-confident, too self-assured,” says Mr. ingly demonstrated the failure of multicultural co- Redding. “Even some black people, who should alitions, civil rights legislation and integration,” he know better, would think he was too cocky.” wrote in a 2007 paper. “The current task of radical Then again, Mr. Curry was a first-generation black Black thought now rests in the development of al- student with dreams of blazing through the white worlds of competitive debate and higher education. Mr. Redding knew that the young man would need all the confidence he could muster.