AltLiberalArts Presents: Higher Education Under Attack: Concerted Efforts to Attack Incubators of Democracy From the Polling Site to the University Lectern. Part 2

The U.S. Supreme Court has said, “the essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities is almost self-evident. No one should underestimate the vital role in a democracy that is played by those who guide and train our youth. To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders in our colleges and universities would imperil the future of our Nation.” Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234, 250 (1957). Yet, through state sanctioned censorship public universities in Florida, Texas, and Alabama have imposed intellectual strait jackets on professors and muzzled them from teaching accurate and inclusive curriculum involving topics related to racism, ethnic studies, gender and sexuality studies. This lecture will discuss the impacts of this censorship and how we can build power to defend the university as the intellectual incubator of multiracial democracies.

Antonio Lavalle Ingram II serves as Senior Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund where he works on educational equity and political participation cases in the south. He is a graduate of Yale College and UC Berkeley School of Law. He has led litigation against the University of Alabama system and the Texas Tech system to protect academic freedom and combat racial discrimination against professors and students of color.

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