Academic Freedom On the Line: The Students

AAUP Presents

For this episode, we speak with a coalition of student leaders actively organizing against state-level DEI bans in Texas and Kentucky. This is the third episode in the special series, "Academic Freedom on the Line," being produced in conjunction with the AAUP's Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom (CDAF). Host Vineeta Singh also speaks with Clare Carter at the Freedom to Learn team to help us understand how state legislatures have attacked the principles of academic freedom, institutional autonomy, and shared governance, and then we get to hear from the students about what this has looked like on their campus, and how they have mobilized against these attacks.

The episode guests are:

• Clare Carter, the Program Assistant for the Freedom to Learn Program at PEN America where she and the Freedom to Learn team work to combat state legislation that would censor higher education. You can reach her at ccarter at pen dot org
• Dionicia Berrones, a Texas Students for DEI member who supports the collective with Administrative + Operational Tasks, Onboarding, and Outreach. She is completing an Ed.M. in Education Leadership, Organizations, and Entrepreneurship with a concentration in Identity, Power, and Justice in Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
• Angel Yongyin Huang, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, majoring in Sociology and minoring in Social Work. Angel is also the Economic Opportunity Fellow for Every Texan and a leader in Students Engaged in Advancing (SEAT), where she has been at the forefront of protecting students' rights by opposing educational censorship bills.
• Laysha Renee Gonzalez, a proud daughter of Mexican immigrants and a first-generation college student. With the support of the Terry Foundation Scholarship, she achieved her dream of studying at The University of Texas at Austin, majoring in Race, Indigeneity, and Migration and Plan II Honors, with minors in Government and Women’s and Gender Studies, set to be the first in her lineage to graduate from a U.S. university this May.
• Savannah Dowell, a third-year undergraduate student at the University of Louisville double-majoring in history and gender studies with a minor in humanities. She’s also an organizer with the Kentucky Student Coalition for DEI focusing on student outreach and collaboration between public universities across the Commonwealth.
• Bradley Price, from Lexington, Kentucky by way of Natchitoches, Louisiana, is a junior undergraduate student at the University of Louisville, double-majoring in Pan-African Studies and English Literature with a minor in creative writing. She’s an organizer with the Kentucky Student Coalition for DEI, focusing on social media and collaboration between public universities across the Commonwealth.

Links:

• Get involved with Texas Students for DEI
• Students for DEI at the University of Louisville
• Follow these orgs on social media through the handles:
  • @txstudentsfordei
  • @kystudents4dei
  • @students4deiuofl
• PEN America’s work on Education Censorship
• America’s Censored Classrooms 2024 is an excellent introduction to the work of PEN America’s Freedom to Learn Team