Case 4:22-cv-00324-MW-MAF Document 44 Filed 11/17/22 Page 134 of 139
disinterestedness is above all suspicion, whose independence is beyond all doubt, and whose devotion to the whole country, as distinguished from any single class or group is above all question.”[1] He asserted “the question of academic freedom” is also “the question of intellectual and spiritual leadership in American democracy.”[2] Echoing this belief 35 years later, Justice Frankfurter opined that “[i]t is the special task” of our professors—the “priests of our democracy”—“to foster those habits of open-mindedness and critical inquiry which alone make for responsible citizens.” Wieman, 344 at 196 (Frankfurter, J., concurring).
In this case, the State of Florida lays the cornerstone of its own Ministry of Truth under the guise of the Individual Freedom Act, declaring which viewpoints shall be orthodox and which shall be verboten in its university classrooms. Borrowing from Professor Beard’s comments—which are equally applicable here—under the State of Florida’s control, those “who love the smooth and easy will turn to teaching,” so long as “[p]erfunctory performance of statutory duties … bring[s] the paycheck.”[3] But educators “of will, initiative, and inventiveness, not afraid of
- ↑ This Court recognizes the terminations that so disturbed Professor Beard resulted from statements the anti-war professors made outside of the classroom. Nonetheless, this example reinforces the principle that academic freedom suffers when those who control the university seek to impose their own orthodoxy upon those who teach.
- ↑ Charles A. Beard, The University and Democracy, The Dial, April 11, 1918, at 335.
- ↑ Id. at 336.
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