AFT’s Academic Freedom Comes With an Approved Reading List

Proposed Resolution 28 solemnly declares that debate, discussion, and open inquiry are essential to education. It condemns political and ideological interference and promises academic freedom for educators and students.

That sounds wonderful. It also sits awkwardly inside a convention book packed with resolutions prescribing the correct position on immigration, gender identity, Israel, Iran, military spending, climate policy, organized labor, healthcare, and Donald Trump.

AFT’s version of academic freedom appears to work in one direction. Educators should be protected when their speech matches the union’s political program. Laws, school boards, and parents who object are described as authoritarian, repressive, or hostile to knowledge.

But what happens to the teacher who questions a fashionable diversity program? What about the professor who supports Israel, favors immigration enforcement, believes sex is biological, or thinks education savings accounts can help low-income families? Does AFT defend that person with equal energy?

Academic freedom is not agreement with AFT. It is the freedom to test ideas, challenge assumptions, present competing evidence, and reach conclusions that make powerful organizations uncomfortable. That includes the teachers union.

The resolution even boasts that AFT prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion in mandated curricular topics. Read those words again: mandated topics offered as evidence of freedom. Apparently, nothing says open inquiry like a national political organization deciding which ideology must be included.

AFT is free to advocate its positions. It is not free to redefine ideological conformity as academic freedom.

If the union truly wants open classrooms and campuses, it should defend dissenters it dislikes, not merely activists it agrees with. Freedom that applies only to approved opinions is not academic freedom. It is a dress code for ideas.