The Review: From Georgia to Michigan to Yale, Tenure and Self-Governance Are Under Attack

Academic freedom is a culture, not just a set of formal rules. ADVERTISEMENT [Academe Today Logo]( Did someone forward you this newsletter? [Sign up free]( to receive your own copy. Tenure is not the only thing necessary to sustaining academic freedom, but it’s the most important. So the news that the regents of the University System of Georgia recently approved a new post-tenure review process that, in the words of the American Association of University Professors, will “severely compromise” tenure is the most alarming single development for the [future of academic freedom]( in the American university since Steven Salaita’s hiring was [reversed]( by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2014. (Our Emma Pettit [reports]( Where Georgia goes, other states will probably follow. Georgia’s is the most systematic of recent attacks on faculty autonomy. Others, smaller in scope but no less distressing for that, include the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s initial [refusal]( at the behest of a politicized governing board, to [hire]( [Nikole Hannah-Jones]( the University of Mississippi’s [firing]( of Garrett Felber, apparently because he had criticized the university; and the craven [acquiescence]( of Yale’s president, Peter Salovey, to the demands of a couple of super-rich donors. And then there’s the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where the guarantees of academic freedom are being tested by what looks to some faculty members like a blend of cowardice and incompetence. In addition to formal job protections, academic freedom depends on a package of soft norms — a commitment to professional disagreement as opposed to demonization; a tacit devotion to scholarly pluralism; a willingness to reject, however respectfully, some student demands — as well as a principled administrative class capable of understanding and of honoring the ideals of the institutions they superintend. None of those things are in evidence right now at Michigan, where the distinguished composer Bright Sheng was removed from a class he was teaching for screening a 1965 film version of Othello featuring Laurence Olivier, in blackface, in the title role. Sheng, who grew up in China and came to the United States in the 1980s, had shown the film before, without incident. But when students complained, he seemed to recognize that the potentially shocking nature of the film — controversial since its initial release — should have been discussed beforehand. After the class, he sent an email apologizing for showing Olivier’s “racially insensitive and outdated” performance. “We will not finish watching the video,” he emailed. “We will address the issue and find an alternative for next week.” Instead, as our Tom Bartlett [reports]( some of Sheng’s colleagues denounced him, and David Gier, dean of Michigan’s music school, kicked him off the course (though, Gier says, with Sheng’s “concurrence”). As Silke Marie-Weineck, a professor of comparative literature and German studies there, told me: “Professor Sheng was publicly humiliated, and the students were cheated out of an extraordinary teaching moment. I believe that the dean handled this very poorly.” (An open letter by faculty members criticizing the university’s treatment of Sheng is currently [circulating]( Sheng should never have “concurred,” and Gier should have stood up for him, not gone after him. In a perfect world, Sheng’s initial apology, which was earnest and thoughtful, would have resolved the issue. In this world, the lessons are clear, at least if you still have the formal protections Georgia is intent on demolishing: Never apologize. Don’t trust your administration. Lawyer up. SPONSOR CONTENT | Gale [Providing Gen Z students with credible content to navigate the future.]( ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. The Latest THE REVIEW [Indoctrination Sessions Have No Place in the Academy]( By Elizabeth Corey and Jeffrey Polet [STORY IMAGE]( For educators, nothing is self evident; for “trainers,” everything is. ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW [The Future of Community Colleges]( By Liz McMillen [STORY IMAGE]( How an oft-neglected sector can make itself essential in a post-pandemic world. THE REVIEW [What Critics of Economics Get Wrong]( By Diane Coyle [STORY IMAGE]( Bashing the field is commonplace, but few are doing it for the right reasons. THE REVIEW [Abolish Legacy Admissions Now]( By Ronald J. Daniels [STORY IMAGE]( Hereditary advantage has no place in higher ed. Recommended: - “A simulation of the experience of power, understood as the collapse of the space between impulse and act, may be more generalized in online environments where a forgetfulness of the body is also a default setting.” At The Convivial Society, [L.M. Sacasas on pity, cruelty, and social media]( by way of Alasdair MacIntyre, Simone Weil, Homer, and The Lord of the Rings. - “I found in Johns what I would also relish in Mark Rothko: a nebulous field that would tolerate my extremes of projection, my excesses of interpretation.” At Artforum, [Wayne Koestenbaum]( on Jasper Johns’s “In Memory of My Feelings — Frank O’Hara” (from 1994). The Whitney Museum’s Johns [retrospective]( runs through February 13, 2022. - “Perhaps the only legitimate question, then, is: Have we always been this mean or are we getting worse?” At The Guardian, [Emma Bro]( on the “Bad Art Friend” — and on the social implications of a burgeoning genre. - “I think if I were to ask somebody in the street [in Zanzibar], ‘Who’s Freddie Mercury?’ they probably won’t know. Mind you, they probably wouldn’t know who I am either.” At The Guardian, [an interview]( with the Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah. SPONSOR CONTENT | vitalsource [Can Learning Science Make Online Learning Easier?]( Having a transformative impact on education, learn how accessible tools, materials and technology based on research are creating effective learning environments for students. Write to me at len.gutkin@chronicle.com. 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