Academic Unfreedom in America

Abstract

Just as democracy appears to be fading in the United States, so is the legacy of higher education’s faith in and commitment to democracy. Higher education is increasingly abandoning its role as a democratic public sphere as it aligns itself with corporate power and military values, while at the same time succumbing to a range of right-wing religious and political attacks.1 Instead of being a space of critical dialogue, analysis, and interpretation, it is increasingly defined as a space of consumption, where ideas are validated in instrumental terms and valued for their success in attracting outside funding while developing increasingly “strong ties with corporate and warfare powers” (Angus 69). As the culture of research is oriented toward the needs of the military-industrial-academic complex, faculty and students find their work further removed from the language of democratic values and their respective roles modeled largely upon entrepreneurs and consumers. With no irony intended, Philip Leopold argues that it is an “essential part of an academic career” that academics be viewed as business entrepreneurs, trained to “watch the bottom line” and to be attentive to “principles of finance, management, and marketing” and to the development of a “brand identity (academic reputation) that is built on marketing (publications and presentations) of a high-quality product (new knowledge)” (n. pag.).