The unfettered expression of ideas is a cornerstone of liberal democracy; it is a prime political value. It is not, however, an academic value, and if we come to regard it as our primary responsibility, we will default on the responsibilities assigned us and come to be what no one pays us to be -- political agents.

As teachers, professors encourage the free pursuit of learning in their students. They hold before them the best scholarly and ethical standards of their discipline. Professors demonstrate respect for students as individuals and adhere to their proper roles as intellectual guides and counselors. Professors make every reasonable effort to foster honest academic conduct and to ensure that their evaluations of students reflect each student’s true merit. They respect the confidential nature of the relationship between professor and student. They avoid any exploitation, harassment, or discriminatory treatment of students. They acknowledge significant academic or scholarly assistance from them. They protect their academic freedom.

In real life, when you’re trying to figure out the truth about something interesting, rarely do you get to simply “open the box” or ask an authority figure (a sort of god) to tell you for real what’s in the box. Whether you’re trying to understand a complex phenomenon in physics or trying to ascertain what is causing a patient’s symptoms, you don’t get to just cut to the answer. There’s no “back of the book” answer key in most of life. And even when you think you have the right answer, you may be wrong.

Scholar-activism wrongly presumes individual scholars choose a virtuous career path by becoming principled partisans or staunch superheroes. Instead, the commitment to methods that protect inquiry and promote truth help society make tangible improvements. Scholarship can improve the world—but it does so on a pace and in unpredictable ways that cannot be reduced to individuals’ contributions.

When scholars are not seen as producing credible information free from political interference, we all lose the ability to challenge power, irrationality, bigotry, groupthink, quackery, and superstition. We also lose the ability to resist extramural forces that would have scholars bend academic research agendas, conclusions, instruction, or professional service to suit political interests.

You probably won't strike people as an activist in your classroom if you:

• teach the methods in your discipline;
• follow the evidence wherever it leads;
• stick to your area of expertise; and
• you don't act personally offended when a student disagrees with you.

Free speech is under attack at colleges and universities today, with critics on and off campus challenging the value of open inquiry and freewheeling intellectual debate. Too often speakers are shouted down, professors are threatened, and classes are disrupted. In Speak Freely, Keith Whittington argues that universities must protect and encourage free speech because vigorous free speech is the lifeblood of the university....

A community college instructor in Iowa is pressured to resign after his pro-antifa social media comments garner vicious harassment that administrators find threatening to campus safety. A tenured biology professor at a college on Long Island is threatened with dismissal because she allegedly grades students too strictly. And in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a conservative activist calls on his followers to take advantage of online classes to send "any and all videos of blatant indoctrination" to his organization so that it might expose and blacklist "leftist professors." These incidents from the 2019-20 academic year represent only the tip of the iceberg. Academic freedom, long heralded as a core value of American higher education, may now be in as much danger as at any time the 1950s. But what is "academic freedom"?