What Can PSA Do That AAUP on FIRE Can't?

These days of raging FIRE are too poetic not to use in aid of their own ends to defend and sustain the free speech and thought of all Americans. From 1999 to 2022, the organization did this sort of thing for a very small subset of Americans in very specific, temporary, unbalanced, ROI relationships at very specific, temporary, unbalanced, locations. They did this sort of thing for those Americas who try to earn and learn in higher education. Let's hear about it from an overseas ally, Academics for Academic Freedom (AFAF),

Founded in 1999, [Foundation for Individual Rights in Education] FIRE’s mission was to defend and sustain the individual rights of all students and faculty members at America’s colleges and universities. These rights included freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience—the essential qualities of liberty. FIRE continues to educate students, faculty, alumni, trustees, and the public about the threats to these rights on our campuses and provides the means to preserve them.

I thought it might be amusing to provide a PSA version of the mission,

Founded in 1992ish, [Professional Society of Academics] PSA’s mission was (and remains) to defend and sustain the individual rights of all students and academics whether employed or enrolled in universities and colleges or earning and learning in the independent professional model of service and stewardship. These rights include…but also the rights to earn a living and tuition-free higher education, which are perhaps not essential qualities of liberty, but earning and learning sure help with its exercise. PSA continues to educate all people about the threats that campuses pose to these rights and provides the means to preserve these rights by making campuses electives in higher education service and stewardship.

I know, right. This takes a piss on twenty-odd years of FIRE. According to PSA, much of it was unnecessary and so a waste of so very much. Incidentally, in the past I have reached out to FIRE offering PSA. It was the usual silence, induced by too much assuming, I assume.

Speaking of which, what is academic freedom? Let’s hear again from our English AFAF friends,

Academic freedom – the responsibility to speak your mind and challenge conventional wisdom – defines the university and stands as a model for open debate in wider society.

And with a PSA dusting we get something like,

Academic freedom - the responsibility to speak your mind and challenge conventional wisdom - defines some universities and stands as a model for open debate in wider society but not about itself, not about its being but one example of a universitas for higher education, not about the fact that many academics cannot meet this defining responsibility nor, if you like, exercise the freedom to speak and challenge, nor the right to do so while earning a living, being careful not to conflate the notion of academic with that of faculty employee.

It is extraordinary how assbackwards institutionphiles and unionphiles get things, thanks to what seems a collective failure to perform one of the principal functions of academics, to challenge the given. Have a look at a demonstration of this failure in an interview given by an acknowledged expert on academic freedom, Hank Reichman, from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). I have started a PSA treatment of this interview here, and hope to finish at least the first five responses and then walk into the jungle.

If you think that these institutions, their faculty, and the academic freedom these employees seek in order to perform their jobs, if you think this traditional arrangement epitomizes open, original thinking, then man wait until you get a grip on PSA. If you think that the university employer thrusts upon faculty this important social responsibility, then dude PSA will blow your mind.

Consider this, I'm an academic. Maybe not much of one, but still. So that means I have academic freedom and so a (special, unique, important?) responsibility thrust upon me a la AFAF. But, alas, I am not (now) a faculty employee of a university, which means I am unable to fulfill my responsibility to...that is, unless I'm willing to work for free. Only now I worry that this failure of mine (or is it the model?) to meet academic responsibility is actionable in criminal or civil court. Certainly passing my courses off to students as credit toward recognized degrees would be legally actionable. I mean, I'm not an institution, like Trump University, I'm an individual. So, could I lose a license to practice or something?

Ok, try seeing it this way,

Academic freedom – the responsibility to speak your mind and challenge conventional wisdom when in the employ of a university – defines a universitas and stands as a model for open debate in wider society and as fertilizer for another universitas that makes the first one elective and so academic freedom elective.

PSA removes the institutional employer and enroller bottleneck to higher education. It removes the exclusive hiring and firing of academics by institutional employers. It removes the institutional education of students, making it more expansive, diverse, inclusive and equal in access and content. It loosens the grip of authoritarianism on higher education, replacing it with a firmer grip in the hands of academics who might elect to work for a university, or not. It better economizes the production and protection of higher education, with economy in finances and interests.

The institutional model dabs our innate liberty to earn and learn on select locations, employees and enrollees, while PSA atomizes this liberty across all people who seek living or learning in higher education, including those that manage to squeeze through the funnel of the institutional facilitator in order to meet their responsibilities, only to find struggle for protection from the facilitator in the form of academic freedom or a fixed-term contract. And then it's, hi-ho, hi-ho, off to work we go.

Do you think that these higher education institutions are the most effective, efficient, economical, or ethical means of service and stewardship for higher education? Does it bother you that you can’t answer this question? Because you can't and it really should bother you. Do you imagine that the best of humanity are found in these institutions? How about the humanity that is most in need of the higher education that these institutions facilitate? There are so many questions that are barred from the discussion because the participants assume the inheritance, even though some of the participants call themselves academics and should know better.

The AFAF describes for us the recently expanded FIRE mission,

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s mission is to defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

There is nothing original here and anyone organizing to act in protection of freedoms and rights is welcome. But the poetic opportunity this presents for exploration of expansion of freedom in higher education should not be ignored. Watch what happens when a professional model dabs its ink,

The Professional Society of Academics is meant to defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought — the most essential qualities of liberty. PSA educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights whether or not the individual happens to be a faculty employee or a student enrollee at some time and place, promotes a culture of respect for these rights that is not subject to the stipulations of institutional employment contracts sometimes won in bargaining with trade unions or professional associations, and provides the means to preserve these rights in a social pillar that is purged of a centuries-old assumption in service and stewardship, the inheritance.

Notice how PSA designs the sort of expansion that FIRE dawns. Notice how PSA champions expansion of individual rights when it divides through by the institutions of higher education, leaving us with us, in far more expansive spaces of liberty shared among persons who happen to exercise liberty in becoming an academic or student and then studying together (formally). Notice how PSA introduces shades of freedoms and rights protection and exercise that did not exist before in higher education, in the social spectrum. Prior to PSA, as FIRE conveniently illustrates, there existed a seemingly clear distinction between “individual rights in education” and “individual rights and expression” - between rights on campus and rights on commons - as clear, I suppose, as the distinction between the original AAUP notion of academic freedom and the elaborated version it now sleeves.

Indeed, the disaster de jour is the widespread, discriminate shelling of academic freedom. Depending on who you listen to, this freedom is rooted in the convictions of Socrates or the conventions of an organization that begins with A ends with P on FIRE. I abuse and disabuse with respect to academic freedom elsewhere on this blog. But please notice how without the need of academic freedom and the considerable resources it consumes, PSA expands the freedoms and rights of individuals to earn and learn in higher education, while it remits at least a fifty percent discount on the current price tag for the service and stewardship.(See: USA, Canada, Australia) 

PSA doesn't bulldoze the walls of a university but it does push higher education through them. Maybe it lands on Manhattan Island in some office building or above Mike's Accountancy across from the KFC on Main and Titus. But it will be free of institutions. Now, where was I...office space, Manhattan, Trump...hmm.

I'll end on an invitation for you to perform a PSA translation of this FIRE self-description,

FIRE’s mission is to defend and sustain the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought—the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE educates Americans about the importance of these inalienable rights, promotes a culture of respect for these rights, and provides the means to preserve them.

FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience. [Emphasis is original.]

With the last word going to John Wilson, who defends the AAUP in the organization's journal, Academe, can you guess the single word change I made?

I would say this to the AAUP and FIRE: There are many people who want to repress free inquiry on campus, but these two organizations—despite all of their arguments and occasional mean-spirited sniping at each other—are both part of the problem.

All are most welcome to join work on PSA. Seriously, I'm being an asshole these days, for different reasons, but the invitation to engage is sincere...as I watch the mountain scape go to grey scale and the gatos gather on the grass.