Some university administrations are (as we have seen) trying to prevent professors from teaching about topics related to gender, sexuality, and race.
Some may be doing this of their own accord. Others may be begrudgingly succumbing to pressure from legislators or trustees. Still others may be preparing to manage or even resist that pressure.
The result is that some administrations are cancelling certain courses and many others are gathering information about courses.
Last night, an anonymous contributor to the Teaching Philosophy Facebook Group shared what’s happening at their university:
I’m teaching at one of the universities that is requiring professors to provide justification for inclusion of topics related to race, gender, sex, and sexuality in all of our courses.
And they’re looking for help finding official or institutional or otherwise authoritative-sounding resources to help with that justification process:
I’m compiling resources that support the inclusion of these topics in philosophy courses. In particular, I’m looking for resources that have institutional backing (such as the APA or other professional orgs) that situate these topics within our discipline and/or convey clearly to non-philosophers that these are legitimate or essential topics of study within philosophy.
By way of example, they shared that:
some colleagues in Sociology are referring to the ASA Code of Ethics to support their choices (whether or not that will be successful remains to be seen). We don’t exactly have a corollary in philosophy as far as I know. But does anyone know of any resources… along those lines?
Your suggestions would, I’m sure, be greatly appreciated. Please be specific, and if possible, provide links to the relevant sites or documents.
Related: Texas A&M shutters its Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
