{"id":530761,"date":"2021-05-20T18:35:58","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T22:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=530761"},"modified":"2021-05-20T18:36:01","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T22:36:01","slug":"knowles-stop-defending-academic-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/knowles-stop-defending-academic-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"KNOWLES: Stop Defending \u2018Academic Freedom\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fknowles-stop-defending-academic-freedom%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=530761&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1318355845-1200x800-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Finally some good news&nbsp;on&nbsp;campus: Nikole Hannah-Jones has been denied tenure at the University of North Carolina.&nbsp;Although&nbsp;Hannah-Jones, the&nbsp;<em>New York Times<\/em>&nbsp;fabulist&nbsp;behind the anti-historical 1619 Project, had&nbsp;secured&nbsp;the endorsement of the school\u2019s journalism department,&nbsp;the&nbsp;university\u2019s board of trustees&nbsp;has&nbsp;intervened to deny&nbsp;her&nbsp;permanent employment.<\/p>\n<p>The trustees made the right decision. Hannah-Jones has won impressive accolades, including the MacArthur \u201cGenius Grant\u201d and a Pulitzer Prize, but she deserves none of them. As academic historians from across the political spectrum noted when the 1619 Project first appeared, Hannah-Jones\u2019s entire thesis depends upon a lie. \u201cOne of the primary reasons the colonists decided to declare their independence from Britain,\u201d Hannah-Jones argued, \u201cwas because they wanted to protect the institution of slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hannah-Jones provided no evidence for her central claim because none exists. Nevertheless, the&nbsp;<em>Times<\/em>&nbsp;persisted in defending the lie for seven months, until March of 2020, when&nbsp;<em>Times<\/em>&nbsp;editors tweaked the passage to read, \u201cOne of the primary reasons&nbsp;<em>some of<\/em> the colonists decided to declare their independence\u201d (emphasis mine). The claim remained incorrect \u2014 the colonists simply did not fight the Revolution to preserve slavery \u2014 but even the <em>Times<\/em>\u2018s modest correction conceded the point: the 1619 Project had gotten its thesis wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Regardless, leftist pundits swiftly condemned UNC\u2019s decision, resorting to typical and baseless accusations of racism, misogyny, and bigotry. Sadly, some conservatives rushed to Nikole Hannah-Jones\u2019s defense as well, albeit for a different reason. The decision, they feared, threatened \u201cacademic freedom.\u201d The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which has often valiantly fought to protect conservative students and scholars from leftist censorship on campus, announced an investigation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf it is accurate that this refusal was the result of viewpoint discrimination against Hannah-Jones, particularly based on political opposition to her appointment, this decision has disturbing implications for academic freedom, which is vital in allowing faculty members to voice divergent views,\u201d FIRE fretted. \u201cWhen decisions on academic tenure incorporate a form of political litmus test, this freedom is gravely compromised.\u201d Other prominent conservatives and libertarians joined FIRE to express their concern over the fate of \u201cacademic freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But \u201cacademic freedom\u201d as we understand the term today does not exist. It is a \u201choax\u201d and \u201csuperstition,\u201d to borrow of words of William F. Buckley Jr., who&nbsp;launched both his career and the postwar conservative movement with a book inveighing against it. All universities must have a mission, Buckley argued, which means that educators must structure their lectures toward advancing that mission and leave sermons that contradict it out of the classroom. Scholars may pursue whichever intellectual pursuits they fancy on their own time and dollar, but they have no right to indoctrinate students in their nonsense.<\/p>\n<p>Buckley attacked universities for justifying their godless and collectivist curricula on the basis of academic freedom over the objections of parents and alumni. \u201cIn the last analysis,\u201d Buckley concluded, \u201cacademic freedom must mean the freedom of men and women to supervise the educational activities and aims of the schools they oversee and support,\u201d just as the UNC trustees have done in the case of Nikole-Hannah Jones. Buckley encouraged alumni to withhold donations until universities encouraged Christian morality and free-market economics. Today, many self-styled conservatives relegate themselves to making piddling pleas for \u201cintellectual diversity\u201d in the hopes that radicals don\u2019t run them off campus altogether.<\/p>\n<p>Buckley\u2019s intellectual heirs have flipped his stance on \u201cacademic freedom\u201d \u2014 a development I chronicle at length in my <a href=\"https:\/\/www.regnery.com\/custom\/michael-knowles-book\/\">upcoming book<\/a> <em>Speechless: Controlling Words, Controlling Minds<\/em>. But WFB and&nbsp;the&nbsp;countless conservatives who came before him had it right. Universities educate, which means they necessarily encourage certain ideas and discourage others. Neutrality is an illusion.<\/p>\n<p><i>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a<\/i>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i>member<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finally some good news\u00a0on\u00a0campus: Nikole Hannah-Jones has been denied tenure at the University of North Carolina.\u00a0Although\u00a0Hannah-Jones, the\u00a0New York Times\u00a0fabulist\u00a0behind the anti-historical 1619 Project, had\u00a0secured\u00a0the endorsement of the school\u2019s journalism department,\u00a0the\u00a0university\u2019s &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312526,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1318355845-1200x800-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"KNOWLES: Stop Defending \u2018Academic Freedom\u2019","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/GettyImages-1318355845-1200x800-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"KNOWLES: Stop Defending \u2018Academic Freedom\u2019","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}