Two Year College English Association — Southwest
Statement in Support of Academic Freedom
The Two-Year College English Association — Southwest, representing two-year college English teachers in six states (Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana), supports academic freedom for all college instructors. We also stand against proposals to forbid the teaching of Critical Race Theory in institutions of higher education and any calls to deny or revoke tenure for those professors who engage with a decades-long discourse in their classes.
While we stand in solidarity with faculty at four-year institutions where tenure is under fire, most faculty at two-year colleges lack this security. Nevertheless, we join with our university colleagues to assert that quality education everywhere is based on academic freedom. College instructors are field-experts and should never fear contract non-renewal or any other penalty for teaching the material they have deemed relevant to student learning.
Any attempt by any government entity to dictate what college teachers do in their classrooms is unconscionable. Scholars should be free to teach, research, and ask critical questions regardless of political punditry.
Therefore, we stand in support of academic freedom and job security for all faculty and against ignorance and heavy-handed political intrusion into college classrooms.