The news came about a week ago. A colleague sent a message that our college administration had shut down the website for The Center for Equity and Justice in Teacher Education at Georgia State University. (The weblink for the center currently says the page is “not found.”)
As a co-director for this center, I was shocked. When pressed to explain, an administrator said the strategy was to take down the website and then figure out how to change language in an attempt to keep things together in the face of directives from the Trump administration.
This is a case of anticipatory compliance, and all those who value academic freedom and fear censorship should be concerned. Sara and I felt like we needed to outline our concerns.
Currently, many universities in Georgia are engaging in anticipatory compliance with pressure from the federal government to remove diversity, equity and inclusion content from classes, websites and programs. Universities are reacting to a “Dear Colleague” letter written by Craig Trainor, the U.S. Department of Education’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, that represents diversity initiatives in schools as “racial discrimination.”
Outside of Georgia, however, other schools (e.g. the University of Massachusetts) are stating very clearly that the law has not changed. When some institutions acquiesce, this only makes other institutions more vulnerable to being targeted by this politically motivated takeover of higher education.
Organizations including the American Association of University Professors, the American Council on Education and EdTrust are urging universities to collectively stand up and fight against this attack on diversity, as well as on academic freedom.
Credit: Con
Credit: Con
This “Dear Colleague” letter is not legally binding and Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders are being challenged through the U.S. courts. However, those of us working in universities who actually believe in social justice and anti-racism must go further.
What if these federal mandates were legally binding? What if the courts uphold the orders or legislators make new laws that challenge our ability to teach, research and/or support anti-racist, social justice work in our universities?
We must fight the immediate attack at the same time as preparing for the next stage, which will likely see directives we do not ethically stand behind enshrined in law. In fact, as we write this, Senate Bill 120, a bill that would make DEI initiatives illegal in Georgia’s public schools and universities, is being considered by the Senate Higher Education Committee.
We must not participate in what has been called anticipatory obedience, preemptive compliance and overcompliance. But further, we must prepare ourselves to practice disobedience and noncompliance.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
We must remember that many examples of racism that we find most egregious today were sanctioned by law.
Sara had Jewish family members in Germany in the 1930s that were legally arrested and either deported or detained in concentration camps before being murdered under Hitler’s administration. Chattel slavery was legal in the United States, as was the subsequent segregation of people based on their skin color. Apartheid was legal in South Africa. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2024 Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful. However, Israel contends this is legal. Yet despite these repressive regimes, people have always resisted.
There were also many people who did not resist and instead were complicit. It’s easy to lament this kind of cowardice, yet there are real tests of courage happening now. Fascists will create laws that are even more dehumanizing and harmful, and it will be up to everyday people to resist and fight back.
How do we as faculty members ready ourselves for real resistance? In order to prepare for engaging in disobedience, we need to organize in solidarity across departments and schools.
For example, two of the first places to be hit by these attacks are our home departments. Nadia works in a social justice education program and Sara works in critical interdisciplinary studies, including feminist studies. For those who teach in supposedly neutral programs such as biology, solidarity may look like standing up and declaring, “I too teach from a social justice/feminist/anti-racist perspective.”
Resistance to these orders will require a much broader community than solely academics. Therefore, faculty must also build solidarity with students as well as nonacademics outside the university.
We are not calling for faculty to try to convince “the public” of the importance of the university as it has existed. Instead, we call on faculty to build strong relationships based on respect and mutuality with those outside of the academy.
This may mean we have to also interrogate our roles and the role of the university in maintaining an unequal society. To do this work — creating resistance through solidarity — will bring us beyond disobedience and toward building a more truly democratic, just world.
Nadia Behizadeh, Ph.D., is a Georgia State University professor and a member of the American Association of University Professors. Sara Giordano, Ph.D., is an associate professor at Kennesaw State University and a member of AAUP. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed are the writers’ own and do not represent those of Georgia State or Kennesaw State.
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
