The Academic Freedom Alliance released a public letter to Concordia University Wisconsin calling on the university to reaffirm the academic freedom of philosophy professor Gregory Schulz.
Schulz is active speaker and writer for public audiences on issues associated with the Lutheran Church, with which Concordia University Wisconsin is affiliated. Earlier this month, he published an online article, "Woke Dysphoria at Concordia," critical of the rise of "wokeism" in American society, in the Lutheran Church, and at Concordia University Wisconsin and criticized in particular how the presidential search was conducted at the university. In apparent response to that public criticism of the university, Schulz was suspended and barred from entering the campus as the university contemplated the future of his employment there.
This controversy is all too familiar. Professor writes something for a public audience that is critical of university administrators, and university administrators respond by retaliating against the professor. From a traditional academic freedom perspective, this sort of thing is a cut-and-dried violation of the professor's academic freedom under the American Association of University Professors standards. This sort of retaliation against "extramural speech" would also be a First Amendment problem for a public university.
