June 11, 2024
Do Much More to Meet This Moment
An interview with United Faculty for the Common Good
As the ascendant far right attempts to assert its hegemony, it has identified universities and academics as important obstacles to its success. In this, the enemies of academic freedom and scholarly inquiry are correct. But it is not enough only to defend the institution from the intensifying siege: our divisions are magnified in defensive struggles, and the terms of debate, such as they are, are set by those who’d burn the libraries down if they could. It is only by going on the attack, and laying out a vision for a democratic university serving the common good, that we can unite the disparate and fractious forces of academic labor, along with the broader sectors of society to which they’re connected—students, first of all.
