Following the terrorist attack in Israel on October 7, when over 1,200 innocent people were murdered and more than 250 were taken hostage, college demonstrations erupted across the US. These demonstrations were particularly malicious at Ivy League institutions and exposed an alarming reality: many students and faculty were siding with terrorists over the innocent victims who had been brutally attacked.

In the months that followed, disturbing scenes were coming from encampments on the campuses of Harvard, Columbia, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania, among others. The encampments and the demonstrations within them showed that rampant antisemitism and anti-American sentiments had been festering on these campuses for far too long.

It is no surprise then that the public’s trust in American educational institutions has taken a nosedive. According to a Gallup poll released last month, nearly 32 percent of Americans expressed having “little to no confidence in higher education,” a significant drop from a similar poll taken in 2015 when it was just 10 percent. Higher education is an important part of our society, so the question then becomes, how do we work to restore trust in these institutions? How can we work to truly make them neutral learning grounds where students can come to discuss ideas without having to fear retribution for their political beliefs?

In You Can’t Teach That! The Battle Over University Classrooms, Keith Whittington, a professor and scholar who has spent decades writing on the cross-section of academic freedom and the US Constitution, provides a well-researched and resourced analysis of the current issues facing colleges and universities, specifically public institutions. Whittington acknowledges the confidence crisis facing higher ed campuses, especially among conservative voters who feel their views are not welcome on campuses. He briefly discusses some of the recent policies state governors have tried to implement to counter corrosive “woke” curriculum or divisive “diversity, equity, and inclusion” policies that have become commonplace on many college campuses. But Whittington warns that government intervention may stifle academic freedom and impede the learning environment high ed campuses are supposed to provide professors and students.

To provide a more comprehensive look at how governments have tried to control higher ed classrooms in the past, Whittington takes readers through a historical timeline–beginning from World War I through modern times—showing how policymakers in state governments have attempted to exert their influence on curriculum and what students and teachers are allowed to say. In 1915, during World War I, a professor was fired from the faculty of the Wharton Business School for his “public support for socialist and progressive causes.” Following the First World War, members of the New York State Legislature released a report on what they described as “revolutionary radicalism” meant to root out communist teachings in classrooms. Although the governor at the time, Alfred E. Smith was against any laws restricting the “freedom of thought” in classrooms, the report inevitably led to a series of bills that were adopted into law and teachers were required to prove that they had not advocated for a change of government for the United States. Policy changes across states in Texas, Ohio, Arkansas, and North Carolina were also implemented to prevent “subversive ideas like the Communist Party” from taking root in college classrooms.

At the time, the public saw legislative actions like these as necessary to help protect America’s war efforts and the success of the free world in the conflict. As Whittington writes, “When the U.S. entered the First World War Congress moved swiftly to criminalize speech or writing that hampered the war effort.” Even the president of Columbia University at the time, Nicholas Murray Butler, who had previously championed “complete freedom” at the university, acknowledged that things changed once Congress declared war: “What had been tolerated before became intolerable now.” He went on to explain that there would be no place at the university for students or faculty on payroll who opposed the laws of the United States or “who acts, speaks, or writes treason.”

According to Whittington’s research, by the 1950s and ’60s, this sentiment had dissipated and the courts “began to give constitutional recognition to principles of academic freedom.” He brings up a case in which Paul Sweezy, a Marxist economist, was investigated by the attorney general of New Hampshire after Sweezy refused to answer questions following his lecture to students at the state’s university and was being held in contempt. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote defending Sweezy’s academic freedom. “To impose any strait jacket upon the intellectual leaders would imperil the future of our nation,” he argued, “teachers and students must always remain free to inquire, to study, and to evaluate … otherwise, our civilization will stagnate and die.”

This is the main point Whittington conveys throughout the book: academic freedom on college campuses must be protected if we want to ensure universities and colleges can fulfill their mission of teaching the next generation of the American workforce. In one of his concluding points, he writes, “American universities should never seek to shelter favored ideas from careful scrutiny nor suppress disfavored ideas out of fear of how they might be perceived.” Different viewpoints should also be allowed to be shared in classrooms and on campuses without external threats infringing on an individual’s freedom of speech.

Most Americans would agree with his sentiment. Unfortunately, what has happened on campuses over the last year has gone far beyond free speech and academic freedom. Particularly for those who believe in the right of Israel to exist, many college campuses have become dangerous environments. Confidence in higher education is now dropping across the political spectrum, a drop was more pronounced for Republicans who do not see these institutions as bastions of free thought, but incubators of often illiberal, progressive, or simply anti-Western ideas that dismiss, expel, or silence speakers and topics that do not fit in a leftist political agenda.

Over the years, there has been a concerted effort from colleges and universities to shut down right-of-center voices. In 2014, following student protests at Rutgers, New Jersey’s state university, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice decided to opt out of delivering the commencement address after protests and petitions from students and faculty opposed to hearing from the first Black woman to serve as Secretary of State. Instead, the university paid Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi, a star from The Jersey Shore, $32,000 to deliver a speech. Last year, Riley Gaines, a former NCAA swimmer and a female athlete advocate, was assaulted at the San Francisco State University where she was scheduled to deliver remarks. In 2022, students at Virginia’s George Mason University attempted to push out their own governor, Glenn Youngkin, from speaking at their commencement address. These are just several examples, but enough to give a snapshot of how lopsided political “tolerance” and “freedom” of speech truly are on college campuses.

Beyond these specific examples, there is also a troubling trend we are seeing among young Americans. They are becoming increasingly unpatriotic, and some have even expressed sympathy toward our adversaries. Only 18 percent of adults between the ages of 18 to 34 say they are “extremely proud” of being an American. More than a third believe the terrorist organization, Hamas, was justified in its barbaric actions on October 7. Another poll showed that one in five Gen Z Americans believe Osama Bin Laden, who murdered nearly three thousand innocent Americans on September 11, 2001, was a “force for good.”

Continuing down the current path would be catastrophic for the future of America. But the solution is not as straightforward as many of us would like it to be. As Whittington argues, there is the potential that government mandates and legislation run the risk of restricting academic freedom and will fail to deliver much-needed change to these academic institutions. At the same time, governments have a responsibility to ensure education institutions under their purview are carrying out their duties as intended and not just promoting and defending their personal and political beliefs.

There are already guardrails in place designed to prohibit university professors from using classrooms and their captive audience to push their individual views and opinions unrelated to the education of students. Whittington notes that “university officials have a legal obligation to address such professional misconduct.” Of course, this does not mean university officials always do the right thing. That is when the government’s role of oversight becomes critical to creating a system of checks and balances. More specifically, it will deliver the public with transparency that will then help drive needed changes and accountability as necessary.

Over the past couple of months, under the leadership of Congresswoman Virginia Foxx of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, we have seen how Congress has been able to successfully wield its oversight responsibility to call out the failures of administrators across college campuses. In December of last year, the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, and Columbia were called in to testify at a hearing on “Holding Campus Leaders Accountable and Confronting Antisemitism.” The hearing helped expose how these individuals had failed to carry out their responsibilities and were instead seemingly acquiescing to the radical voices on campus, endangering the safety of their student body. As of this week, none of those presidents will be returning to their jobs, they all resigned after the scrutiny they received following their repeated failures.

So, while Whittington correctly points out the dangers of a government-directed curriculum or bans on material, it is also true that completely ceding higher education to the highly corrosive ideologies of the radical left is also essentially a ban on opposing viewpoints. Proper oversight is needed, as Congress so effectively used this year through hearings to expose antisemitism and hate coursing through Ivy League universities. Whittington’s book does provide an effective warning and encouragement for the protection of academic freedom. A deficiency in government oversight will allow malign actors to take over, however, as we unfortunately learned this year. Some mix of federal and state-led oversight is needed to ensure radical agendas are not destroying the academic freedom Whittington seeks to preserve.