ABSTRACT This study investigates to what extent activist-scholars in U.S. public universities are reassured by the safeguard of academic freedom when considering whether to express their politics publicly. Drawing from 31 in-depth interviews with a diverse pool of faculty from multiple institutions, this study interrogates activists-scholars’ sense of academic freedom protection as it intersects with their race and gender as well as their academic rank. This article argues that in order to ensure the effectiveness of academic freedom policies, not only is it necessary to assess the moments where academic freedom is overtly violated, academic freedom also must be assessed and reassessed constantly within its sociopolitical and economic context. The participants’ narratives reveal that academic freedom—the ostensible bedrock of the U.S. university system—is in fact a stratified freedom drawn across academic-rank lines, reflecting the racial and gender hierarchies of larger society, and that the culture of the academy encourages conformity rather than ethical risk-taking. In addition to advancing our understanding of how academic freedom operates, this study aims to inform institutional policies and practices contributing to higher education accountability efforts by elucidating ways of reinforcing the academy’s social mission.

中文翻译：

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自由的分层：美国公立大学激进学者与学术自由的交叉分析

摘要 本研究调查了美国公立大学的激进学者在考虑是否公开表达他们的政治观点时对学术自由的保障感到放心的程度。本研究通过对来自多个机构的不同教职员工的 31 次深入采访，询问激进主义学者的学术自由保护意识，因为它与他们的种族和性别以及学术等级相交。本文认为，为了确保学术自由政策的有效性，不仅需要评估学术自由被公然侵犯的时刻，还必须在其社会政治和经济背景下不断评估和重新评估学术自由。参与者的叙述揭示了学术自由——美国表面上的基石 大学系统——实际上是跨越学术等级线的分层自由，反映了更大社会的种族和性别等级，并且学院的文化鼓励一致性而不是道德冒险。除了加深我们对学术自由如何运作的理解之外，本研究还旨在通过阐明加强学院社会使命的方法，为有助于高等教育问责制努力的机构政策和实践提供信息。