Academic freedom is grounded in the faculty member’s qualifications for the position as reviewed by his/her peers. It consists in the freedom to teach, research, write, and to speak in our capacity as citizens without restraint by the administration. The PSC’s Academic Freedom Committee works closely with the University Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom.
The PSC-CUNY Academic Freedom Committee is chaired by Professor Anthony C. Alessandrini (tonyalessandrini@gmail.com)
PSC President Statements Defending Academic Freedom
These letters from PSC President James Davis raise urgent academic freedom issues with the CUNY administration and seek to defend academic freedom as a professional right of all CUNY faculty.
March 11th, 2025 Letter to Chancellor Felix Matos Rodríguez: Calling for swift and decisive action in response to federal agents’ arrest and detention of Mahmoud Khalil, a green card-holding permanent resident who had participated in protests against the war in Gaza while he was a student at Columbia. President Davis calls for a public affirmation of the speech and assembly rights of CUNY community members with student visas, work visas, and with green cards. He also asks the Chancellor to affirm the prohibition against Department of Homeland Security agents, including ICE officers, entering CUNY facilities without presenting a judicial warrant to a college’s legal counsel or the director of security.
March 7th, 2025 Letter to PSC Membership: President Davis indicates that the PSC is alarmed by, and closely following, a number of reports of members being called into meetings with their college’s Chief Diversity Officer because complaints against them have been filed through a CUNY-wide Discrimination and Retaliation Reporting Portal. Davis raises concerns about the weaponization of Title VI protections “to create the very climate of fear and anxiety that Title VI of the 1964 U.S. Civil Rights Act was intended to prevent,” and explains the rights of those against whom a complaint is filed.
February 26th, 2025 Letter to Chancellor Felix Matos Rodríguez and Governor Kathy Hochul: President Davis registers the PSC’s strong objection to Governor Hochul’s removal of a job posting for a Palestinian Studies faculty position at Hunter College. Calling out the violation of academic freedom, Davis writes that it is “an overreach of authority to rule an entire area of academic study out of bounds.” “An elected official dictating what topics may be taught at a public college is a line that should not be crossed,” the letter went on to say. “CUNY Colleges are already seeking to limit the rights of assembly and speech on their campuses. CUNY faculty are being investigated when a student objects to a classroom topic or a choice of words. What will be next on the list of unacceptable topics?”
October 15th, 2024 Letter to Chancellor Felix Matos Rodríguez and Queens College President Frank Wu: Condemning the October 9 social media attack by a U.S. Congressman on a Queens College faculty member, which “is intolerable to the PSC and should be intolerable to the administration. We call on you to forcefully condemn the Ritchie Torres doxing tweet, which endangers your employee and your students by publicizing the location of the classroom and the zoom link for online participants.”
Letters Defending Academic Freedom
These letters from the PSC Academic Freedom Committee seek to defend academic freedom as a professional right of all CUNY faculty.
Letter to Graduate Center – December 6, 2024: Regarding the Graduate Center investigation of overly broad and unsupported discrimination complaints related to a resolution passed by the Doctoral and Graduate Student Council (DGSC) in October 2024, and the chilling effect created by demanding individual meetings with involved PSC members.
- First Graduate Center Response – December 9, 2024: Confirming reciept and reiterating commitment to the investigation.
- Second Letter to Graduate Center – February 6, 2025: Expressing continued concern over the investigation, especially in light of expanded requests for individual meetings with PSC members, and requesting a meeting between PSC Graduate Center and Academic Freedom leaderhsip and Graduate Center administration.
- Second Graduate Center Response – February 11, 2025: Rejecting the PSC request for a meeting and reiterating commitment to the investigation.
Letter to Queens College January 31, 2025: Regarding the proposed “Interim Queens College Guidance Regarding Time, Place, and Manner Regulations for Demonstrations on Campus,” which we understand to be in direct conflict with the contractually protected academic freedom rights of PSC members.
Letter to Law School – November 20, 2024: Regarding the investigation into an alleged four-year-old time-barred discrimination complaint against Professor Chaumtoli Huq in violation of academic freedom rights. The complaint and investigation focus on material that Professor Huq presented in the classroom, a direct violation of her first amendment rights and of the PSC-CUNY Contract.
Letter to Brooklyn College – November 20, 2024: Regarding the investigation into allegations against Professor Corinna Mullin in violation of academic freedom rights. The complaint and investigation focus on material that Professor Mullin presented in the classroom, a direct violation of her first amendment rights and of the PSC-CUNY Contract.
Letter to City Tech – November 6, 2024: Given the contractual right to academic freedom enjoyed by all PSC-CUNY members, we are deeply alarmed to learn of what appears to be an act of direct censorship by New York City College of Technology management.
Letter to John Jay College – April 15, 2024: Regarding the non-reappointment of Professor Danny Shaw, a long-time adjunct faculty member in the Latin American and Latinx Studies Program and a Senior Research Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, who has been teaching at John Jay since 2007. It has been reported to our committee that President Mason actively intervened in the reappointment process, calling for Professor Shaw to not be reappointed based on his social media activity.
1st Letter to Lehman College – February 23, 2024, 2nd Letter to Lehman College – March 1, 2024: Cancellation of a panel, “Globalize the Intifada! Mapping Struggles for Palestine from the Streets to Our Classrooms,” to have been presented at the conference “Engagement, Equity, and Antiracism” organized by the Writing Across the Curriculum program at Lehman College in collaboration with Hostos Community College.
Letter to Baruch College – December 20, 2023: Cancellation of a faculty teach-in, titled “The Gaza Crisis” organized by members of the Baruch College History Department.
Letter to Hunter College – November 28, 2023: Cancellation of a screening of the film Israelism and failure to act in the face of “doxxing” attacks by outside groups against Hunter College faculty and staff.
Letter to Kingsborough Community College – October 17, 2022: Refusal to use an image from the cover of the book Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the Jim Crow South, written by Professor Kristina DuRocher and published by Kentucky University Press, in an announcement for the panel discussion “From Parent to Child? – Intergenerational Transmission of Hate.”
Letter to John Jay College – May 31, 2022: Cancellation of a student- and faculty-organized conference, “Palestine Lives 2022,” intended to be “a day-long conference to educate on Palestinian culture and speak to the issues of colonialism, imperialism, and Palestinian liberation.”
