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The Stratification of Freedom: An Intersectional Analysis of Activist-Scholars and Academic Freedom at U.S. Public Universities

ABSTRACT This study investigates to what extent activist-scholars in U.S. public universities are reassured by the safeguard of academic freedom when considering whether to express their politics publicly. Drawing from 31 in-depth interviews with a diverse pool of faculty from multiple institutions, this study interrogates activists-scholars’ sense of academic freedom protection as it intersects with their race and gender as well as their academic rank. This article argues that in order to ensure the effectiveness of academic freedom policies, not only is it necessary to assess the moments where academic freedom is overtly violated, academic freedom also must be assessed and reassessed constantly within its sociopolitical and economic context. The participants’ narratives reveal that academic freedom—the ostensible bedrock of the U.S. university system—is in fact a stratified freedom drawn across academic-rank lines, reflecting the racial and gender hierarchies of larger society, and that the culture of the academy encourages conformity rather than ethical risk-taking. In addition to advancing our understanding of how academic freedom operates, this study aims to inform institutional policies and practices contributing to higher education accountability efforts by elucidating ways of reinforcing the academy’s social mission.