The American Educational Research Association (AERA) just released a self-righteous defense of free speech. That’s good, in that free speech can use all the campus allies it can get. The shame of it is that this statement follows two years during which the AERA, the major organization of the nation’s education professors, actively promoted campus groupthink when it came to sensitive issues.
Only now, as the woke project is starting to crumble under its own weight and some Republicans are sharpening their knives, the nation’s ed professors have suddenly rediscovered their abiding passion for free speech. This week, the AERA solemnly intoned, “Our democracy is in a precarious moment.” It explained that higher education institutions “serve as the bedrocks for the free expression of ideas and innovation” and must be protected from those who would “suppress academic freedom.”
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