Yesterday, we ventured into the heart of the city, where we met Dr. Amy Reid on the steps of PEN America headquarters.
Leaving her 17-year long role as Professor of French and Gender Studies at New College of Florida, Dr. Reid came to PEN to advocate for educational freedom. Before she left New College, the administration threw out thousands of books from the Gender Studies program — “we’ve thrown out the program; now we’re taking out the trash,” as they put it. And after her longtime friend and renowned author Patrice Nganang was arrested and detained, she switched her focus to advocating for free expression in national higher education. Now, she works with PEN to combat legislative action preventing educational freedoms in colleges and universities. This includes educational gag orders, which restrict teaching of “divisive concepts,” Dr. Reed explained, and encourage complete neutrality at higher institutions, often creating loopholes for tenured professors to be fired.
Here at Deerfield, Head of School Dr. John Austin’s A Framework for Schools lays out the idea of disciplined nonpartisanship: as he puts it, schools are “places of inquiry and exploration,” not outlets for political activism.
But on the other hand, students question if, in reality, we’re actually practicing disciplined nonpartisanship. A Deerfield Scroll Op-Ed from November 2024 pushes back against the implementation of Dr. Austin’s framework: “Contrary to the ideal assumptions of the framework, disciplined nonpartisanship on behalf of the faculty will infringe upon academic freedom, as these two ideas do overlap in practice,” the author argues. Of course, faculty can’t voice their political opinions or beliefs, so there’s not complete academic freedom. What students are likely responding to — and what I’ve noticed in my own classes — is a reluctance to teach divisive issues. In my experience, we take nonpartisanship to mean, it seems, that we cannot discuss any political or controversial topics; and even though the idea of nonpartisanship applies solely to leadership and faculty, we as students take it to mean we must stop ourselves from bringing up contrary opinions, starting political conversations, and having in-depth conversations that spark debate and disagreement.
I know, from Dr. Austin’s framework and from my personal understanding of education, that the role of schools is not to teach what to think but to teach how to think. How do we stress this necessary “inquiry and exploration” and still encourage both students and teachers to shed light on relevant and important issues? Especially when we look at gag orders threatening faculty around the country with the removal of some of these core educational freedoms, we need to take full advantage of our ability as a private institution to choose what we talk about both in and outside of the classroom.
In many ways, Dr. Reid echoed Dr. Austin’s framework, but she also raised the question of “at what point do we want to curtail a political opinion if it portrays certain things as fact?” stressing that an institution should speak out on issues that matter to them or threaten their mission. “Don’t hide behind institutional neutrality,” Dr. Reid said.
I asked her about the distinction between nonpartisanship and neutrality, hoping for clarification. And there is a difference: in her personal example, when New College’s administration removed thousands of books from the Gender Studies program, she felt the need to speak out. That’s not neutrality. But as a professor and advocate for in-depth and accurate education, she doesn’t force her own political beliefs on her students. What counts as political? In some states, teaching around topics such as critical race theory and gender identity is highly polarized and partisan, and that’s where an institution needs to step in and stand up for their mission and their ideas.
We, as a community, need to learn that nonpartisanship does not manifest in complete silence and neutrality; instead, it means political diversity and open-minded conversations.
It seems to me like we’re losing sight of what educational freedom and nonpartisanship looks like. We’re not at New College of Florida — our books aren’t being banned, our programs aren’t being cut, and we’re allowed to teach and discuss what we care about. So why aren’t we? We can have controversial and hard conversations while practicing disciplined nonpartisanship, and we can encourage each other to listen openly, engage in discomfort, and voice what we believe. We have the privilege of unrestricted educational freedom. We have the chance to model what conscious expressive freedom and active nonpartisanship — not neutrality! — looks like.
We just have to take it.
Next, we headed to the National Archives to check out our country’s founding history!
– Lucia ’28
