Shut Up and Teach

AEI has a new proposal to silence academic associations

Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite. Not only do they have commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but they also have a thousand other kinds: religious, moral, grave, futile, very general and very particular, immense and very small…if it is a question of bringing to light a truth or developing a sentiment with the support of a great example, they associate. - Alexis de Toqueville, Democracy in America

The Toquevillian view that civil society, including it’s associations, are essential bulwarks to protect democracy is such well-worn truism as to be incontestable.

Or so you would have thought.

But we live in an age where serious people, serious advocates of free speech mind you, are very anxious to shut down such speech they disagree with. They are not just happy to lobby government to use its power to shut down such speech, but are entirely indifferent to grotesque hypocrisies as they use their own speech rights to silence others.

Trump and his supporters are already threatening civil society with investigations, lawsuits and intimidation. In the aftermath of student protests, leaders of higher education are increasingly retreating to a position of “institutional neutrality.” Studied indifference to the issues of the day makes a great deal of sense for those seeking to manage organizational reputation and avoid blame, but it is a less than inspiring vision as higher education as a set of institutions willing to speak truth to power.

The right wing wants to go further, and is now targeting professional academic associations from making public statements. The American Enterprise Institute is leading the charge. A recent report presents it as a scandalous that many academic associations have made some sort of statements about race, affirmative action, climate change, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Israel-Hamas, or immigration. To be more precise, AEI views such actions as problematic because “these statements almost uniformly reflect progressive orthodoxy” and it calls on government to not allow public funds to allow people to join professional associations.

This idea might seem outlandish, but it was featured in some of the standard right wing locations, such as The College Fix, The Washington Examiner, and The Wall Street Journals. And we are in a moment when Republican officials are looking for ideas to undermine academic freedom. So, if you are an academic, or just a citizen uncomfortable with the idea of silencing some very specific associations because of the content of their speech, you should be worried about this.

I want to address this attack on professional associations on three levels. First, the basic logic that AEI is proposing is simply false. Second, it is not based on any true defensible principle beyond “free speech for me, but not for thee.” It is a call for government to target speech by associations that AEI disagrees with. And third, it is massively hypocritical. AEI, and other organizations trying to silence professional associations are doing precisely what they say should be forbidden: taking taxpayer dollars to engage in issue advocacy.

The Case Against Academic Associations Making Political Statements

I am president of a professional academic association, and previously was president of another one. So let me first explain to you why it is indeed often a bad idea for academic associations to make political statements before I defend our right to do so.

First, who cares what academic associations have to say on anything? Very few people. So, most of the time, our statements do not make a difference. Our credibility on a topic is directly proportional to our expertise on that topic, and the further we stray from those topics the less credible we sound. Indeed, an article published in Nature: Human Behavior showed that people told about an endorsement that scientific journal Nature had made for Biden in 2020 did not move people’s perspectives, and reduced the credibility of Nature to Trump supporters. This was in an experimental design, where people were presented with the statement. The reality is that people are not going to academic associations to read such statements; the primary audience is the members of the association.

The second reason why academic associations generally don’t make political statements is one that university leaders can sympathize with: it is difficult to develop clear criteria to weigh in on one issue and not another. Association members or critics can easily say, you made a statement on X, why not on Y? Moreover, the sentiments expressed can be parsed — you were plain and unambiguous about X, so why so nuanced about Y? These are entirely reasonable critiques, and potential landmines where your membership might have a clear view on X, but hold more ambiguous views on Y.

The third reason for academic association to avoid political statements is because academic associations might be temperamentally designed to demand such statements, but are terrible at producing them. Academics will wordsmith something to death. We always need more nuance. Time and attention are finite organizational resources, and academic associations can easily expend them on drafting political statements at the expense of more pressing actions.

For these reasons, the reality is that most academic associations might make statements on some public issue, but such statements are rare, because they are not at the heart of what such associations do, which is mostly centered on running academic conferences and publishing research.

The Case for the Right to Make Political Statements

All of that said, if it is a mistake for academic associations to make political statements, those are our mistakes to make. They are our resources and time to waste. We have the right to engage in political speech if we so choose. And, frankly, we do this all of the time in a myriad of ways. As with most organizations, academic associations articulate values, and codes of conduct for members. These are all political actions. But such political actions only become objectionable, according to AEI, when they are at odds with the policy positions of one party. Do we really want academic associations to self-police themselves to ensure they do not offend the political sensibilities of political parties? Once we do that, we have moved very far from the Toquevillian notion of what how associations can bring light to truth in a democracy.

And so, while I might agree that it is often a bad idea for academic institutions to make statements, there is a vast gap between that position, and seeking to compel their silence by pushing government to defund them.

Just as athletes were told to “shut up and play” and pop stars to “shut up and sing,” professional organizations are now being told to “shut up and teach.”

Having given reasons why it mostly a bad idea for academic associations to make political statements, let me explain for why they sometimes should.

First, academic associations have professional expertise on certain topics. And because those associations are centered on scholarly values, that expertise is usually anchored in legitimate scientific values. You can find exceptions, of course, but when the American Political Science Association talks about democracy, or when environmental associations weigh in on climate change issues, you should probably listen to them. On their domains of expertise, they are more likely to be credible relative to AEI or other associations that present themselves as engaging in research, but whose activities are heavily tilted by an ideological lens.

An example: I run an academic public policy association, and was recently asked to sign a statement that expressed concern about funding needs for the Current Population Survey. As an association of policy researchers, we can make a credible case about how vital the survey is for those doing high quality analyses about whether government spending is achieving its goals. You could also imagine our association might want to comment on, say, political interference on scientific data being produced by federal agencies. I’d prefer the right to make the decisions about what is, or is not, appropriate for my members to comment on, rather than have AEI, or elected officials who might be engaging in the actions we are raising objections to, to decide for me.

Ask yourself, how well is the public served if academic associations feel like they will be punished for weighing in on such issues? One source of knowledge and expertise will be removed from the public square. Of course, we could still make our comments on individuals, the collective consensus of a group of scientists is more persuasive than individual statements.

Second, academic associations are representative organizations. They are typically run by elected officers who seek to represent the views and interests of their membership. The structures of our institutions is inherently more democratic than, say, the structure of the AEI or other think tanks, which are necessarily more responsive to donors and partisans. We hear from individual members who express concerns on certain issues. It is incredibly rare for an association to engage in a public statement without prior pressure from their membership, or at least without the knowledge that the vast majority of their members share the expressed views. Again, this is perfectly Toquevillian.

In some cases, the concerns members raise are not about abstract political values but about how public policies directly affect them. For example, members of an association might raise a concern about hosting events in states they can be prosecuted for going to the bathroom, or where they cannot count on reliable health care if their pregnancy runs into trouble. Academic associations are increasingly global, and US immigration policies can directly affect their ability to participate in their profession. For example, AEI singled out the American Statistical Association for raising concerns about President Trump’s travel bans from majority Muslim countries. Is this unreasonable? Not really if you consider that “one out of nine ASA members resides outside the U.S.” This is a straightforward case where associations are drawing attention to how a policy decision directly and negatively affects its membership. After all, what is the point of being a member of a professional association that refuses to represent you?

AEI also objects to any sorts of statements on race and affirmative action being made by academic associations. It singles out a statement by the American Mathematical Society in 2023. The statement is mostly a reflection by the association on its own history of excluding Black scholars. It seems entirely reasonable that an academic association can reflect upon its own past and ways it can do better, and entirely inappropriate that it be punished by government for doing so.

I’m sure that you can find academic association statements that you think of as cringe, or pointless, but the two I pulled out at random from those that AEI highlighted are reasonable, thoughtful, and entirely appropriate. And unlike AEI, these statements largely center on protecting the political rights and expressions of people, rather than silencing them.

The False Claims at the Heart of Efforts to Silence Academic Speech

A lot of the disinformation about higher education is pushed by people who know better, but assume (often correctly) that their intended audience does not. And so its worth unpacking two falsehoods at the heart of AEI’s efforts that might not be apparent to those unfamiliar with academic professional associations.

Falsehood number #1 is that there is a tradeoff between good scholarship and political statements. Here is what AEI says:

Academic associations have a long history of connecting scholars and promoting scholarship, but too many today have traded their scholarly mission for a political one…These associations can play a vital role in fostering a robust exchange of ideas and cultivating a community of scholars. Unfortunately, today, too many have drifted from this mission and now operate more like political entities than scholarly ones.

Really - is this true? Are professional associations now political entities and not scholarly ones? No. It is not true. Whatever political statements that an academic association makes is largely disconnected from its scholarly activities, which primarily center on running conferences and publishing academic journals. Is there less research being produced by scholars at organizations that make political statements? Is it of lower quality? No, of course not. The opposite is true. Based on my experience leading two different professional associations, scholarly standards and competition are continuously rising. Getting a spot at the professional association conference, or a paper in an association journal is typically driven by peer review using classic academic criteria emphasizing rigor and methodological sophistication.¹ The existence of a public position statement by the association does not change this. There is not a check-box where scholars must declare their agreement with some sort of political statement to publish or attend a conference. It is entirely possible to do a fantastic job a producing scholarship and making statements that the AEI dislikes, and its a red herring to suggest otherwise.

Second, lets address the AEI claim that tax dollars are funding these political statements. Again, this is false. Jeremy Young of Pen America has pointed out that states typically already ban the use of tax dollars to pay for membership dues, so the dollar amounts involved is likely much less than AEI claims. Second, membership dues do not fund political statements. Membership payments help subsidize conferences, or provide access to journals, things that cost actual money to run. Political statements are crafted by academics who are generally donating their time, for free, to the professional association. So, on the off chance that tax dollars were covering the cost of, say, a $100 professional membership, it is very difficult to make the case that any of that money is actually going to cover the direct financial costs of crafting and posting an online statement by volunteers.

AEI calls for elected officials to block payments of tax dollars to professional association memberships: “We recommend that public officials stop allowing faculty to use public funds to pay dues and fees to associations that adopt political positions.” Now, employers, both public and private, academic and non-academic, have an interest in subsidizing professional association membership for the same reason they have an interest in funding worker training: it is an investment into the expertise of their employees, a ways in which to build skills and connections that benefits the organization. Academics who do not attend professional meetings are simply less likely to keep abreast of innovation, or exert influence, in their scholarly field. So its no small thing that the education experts at AEI thinks public educational institutions should stop investing in the skills and capacities of their employees. If it further widens the gap between well-off private institutions and constrained public institutions, they seem entirely indifferent to this outcome. I am sure the AEI experts would say that is not their intent.

Instead, the goal appears to be a) to defund academic associations and b) to silence them. This is no different from, for example, Republican efforts to defund unions (or at least non-police unions) because they are not viewed as being sufficiently supportive. And it is not just part of a broader attack on academic freedom. It is massively hypocritical.

A Massive Hypocrisy About “Tax Dollars” and Speech

What is the broader principle here? Is it that all associations should shut up? Of course not. You hear no suggestion that the Chamber of Commerce or other professional associations that might engage in speech supporting Republican positions should be silenced. AEI criticized professional associations because “these statements almost uniformly reflect progressive orthodoxy.” It is the content of the statements that is the problem to be solved.

Aha, you might think, but AEI does have a clear principle here, which is about the use of taxpayer dollars: academic associations can say whatever they want, but those statements should not be subsidized by taxpayer dollars. But on closer inspection, this principle falls apart. Because a vast amount of political speech, including the political speech that AEI is engaging in, is also funded by taxpayer dollars.

And here, I need to introduce you to the concept of tax expenditures. Government can use its taxing and revenue authority in two different ways. One is to spend money directly on a function. The other is to offer tax deductions or tax credits — tax expenditures. People think about these types of authority as different, which is why more and more of the growth of government has occurred via tax expenditures, and why people overlook government programs that are “submerged” into the tax code. But in an actual budgetary sense, the two things are the same. The million dollars a government spends using tax dollars collected has the same effect on the budget as the million dollars in revenues forgone via tax expenditures. As Matt Weidinger, senior AEI fellow explained: “The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation correctly notes that such “tax expenditures” resemble “direct spending programs that function as entitlements.”” Indeed!

One of the largest tax expenditures is, of course, charitable deductions. And you will never guess who relies on charitable tax deductions. Well, maybe you will. According to its website, “most gifts to the American Enterprise Institute are fully tax deductible.”

This hypocrisy is not limited to AEI. If you see an organization railing against the use of tax dollars by people in academia, chances are you will find an organization relying on tax expenditures. The College Fix welcomes your tax-deductible tax contributions so it can continue to rail against “taxpayer subsidies of leftist scholarly associations.” The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a tax-subsidized education association that makes political statements, said that academic associations that make political statements will “stand out, likely drawing negative attention to themselves and hurting their own scholarly purposes.” Their tax-subsidized political statements are good and appropriate, but those of academic associations with actual academics must be silenced.

Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute made similar comments, railing against “taxpayer dollars” being used in ways that are not directed toward “towards knowledge creation, free from ideological bias.” Friends, you will never guess how the Manhattan Institute pays Heather Mac Donald, or Christopher Rufo or Ilya Shapiro. That’s right. Tax expenditures via charitable deductions!²

So, the idea that there is some neat division between the tax-funded political statements by academic associations and organizations like AEI does not hold up. Indeed, the reality is that organizations like AEI both engage in much more extensive issue advocacy than academic associations, and are much more reliant on the tax subsidies to do so.

The only discernible principle behind AEI is relying on is that academics they disagree with should shut up. I am a fellow at AAUP’s Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom. I asked Issac Kamola, the Center Director about this issue: “It’s important to note that the AEI ‘report’ did not dispute the merit of the statements being issued, only that they constitute a 'progressive orthodoxy.’…The authors did not demonstrate that the statements made were wrong, only that they objected to what was being said.”

If you were to make the argument that public officials should block tax deductions for think tanks who have taking right wing positions we would hear endless howls about censorship, viewpoint discrimination, attacks on free speech etc. But that is precisely the logic espoused by AEI.

Toquevillian or Orwellian?

If you are on the side of telling people to shut up, or encouraging government to use its power to shut them up, maybe its time to question your commitment to free speech and democracy. But AEI has embraced tactics of democratic backsliding when it comes to higher education. At the same time that it is advocating to shut down the ability of professional associations to engage in political speech, AEI is also outlining how Trump can fire educational accreditors. This would pave the way for more politicization of the curriculum, removing one more professional protection for the academic freedom to learn and to teach. The consistent through-line in AEI’s logic is not that politics and academia should not mix, but that political actors, and not scholars, should determine what scholars are allowed to say.

AEI presents itself as the acceptable face of conservative intellectualism. It includes impressive researchers who do real scholarship, in increasingly sharp contrast to, for example, the Heritage Foundation. It is intellectually diverse enough to host conservatives who both support and oppose Trump and disagree about the danger he poses. It hosts academics, and AEI members often attend professional academic meetings. It partners with other organizations like the Brookings Institution to facilitate cross-ideological discussion. But it is also seemingly happy to silence the same academic associations with whom it engages. The call to defund professional academic associations out of ideological pique is an embarrassment to AEI. You can see yourself in the writings of de Toqueville, or you can see yourself in the writings of Orwell, but you can’t do both.

1. There are some lamentable exceptions. For example, the American Political Science Association appears to allow the anti-democratic Claremont Institute to purchase panels at its conference, despite public statements denouncing election misinformation and efforts to overturn elections which Claremont members were involved in.

2. If you are looking for an example of a tax-supported knowledge (and I use the word loosely here) creation, absolutely fueled by ideological bias, you could not find a better one than the Manhattan Institute. It is not just that the Manhattan Institute is ideologically biased, intolerant of liberal views; it is also intolerant of traditional conservative views: at the behest of donors, they purged members who questioned Trump. Every time you hear a Manhattan Institute expert, remember that these are not people who actually care about intellectual diversity or an exchange of views. They care about their voices being loud and silencing those who disagree with them.