"Academic Freedom, New Politics, Old School Censorship, and Meaningful Constitutional Review"

Nichol will explore the challenge of assuring intellectual liberty and academic freedom from outside political interference in flagship public universities. He will focus, particularly, on legislative and administrative suppression and penalization of research and publication which is critical of public policies embraced by governmental authorities. He will address both internal and external pressures on free expression and academic independence in state universities. He will argue, as well, that as freedom of speech, more broadly, is being deployed, or weaponized, for economic ideological purposes, it is being weakened as an essential component of democratic government.