Cameron Young

Members of Tulane Workers United rally for academic freedom before negotiating with the university.

“We must resist the folly of becoming an echo chamber absent the rich variations of opinion and perspectives,” Tulane University President Michael Fitts wrote in an email on Feb. 26 during an announcement for Tulane’s Center for Civil Discourse. 

Fitts said Tulane should support free speech by “becoming a leader in academic excellence that is fueled by intellectual debate, thoughtful inquiry and robust dialogue.”

Despite Fitts’ claims, some Tulane professors say the university is backing down to outside pressure — an act with broad social implications. 

Andrew Ward, an instructor of political science and international development, received his Ph.D. from Tulane in 2016 and has been on faculty since 2018. 

“By limiting academic freedom, it’s much more than just chopping courses off of the catalog,” Ward said. “It indeed is a shrinking of the capacity to aspire, and the body politic is undergoing an intellectual amputation.”

Academic freedom at Tulane after Kimberly Terrell

Staff research scientist Kimberly Terrell resigned from the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic last year, alleging that Tulane restricted her academic freedom and ability to discuss her research, which showed that the jobs created by the petrochemical industry were not distributed in the Black communities where the plants are located.

After “elected officials and major donors” allegedly expressed hesitancy to support Tulane due to Terrell’s work, the clinic implemented new communication protocols. 

“I was unilaterally told by the dean of the law school that I could no longer communicate with anybody without her prior approval of each communication, and she directly connected that to the study,” Terrell said.

Terrell framed her departure as a matter of principle rather than personnel. 

“Tulane is supposed to be about research, it’s supposed to be about peer-reviewed publications, and it should be promoting that work and not suppressing it,” Terrell said. 

In her resignation letter, she wrote that she “cannot remain silent as this university sacrifices academic integrity for political appeasement.”

For many Tulane faculty members, the episode became a public reference point for what they see as a broader shift.

Widening faculty-administrator divide

University officials have consistently maintained that academic freedom remains intact. After Terrell’s resignation, administrators reiterated their “absolute commitment” to the principle. 

Tulane spokesperson Michael Strecker said in a statement to The Hullabaloo that Tulane’s faculty has “full academic freedom in teaching, research and creative activity carried out within their roles as faculty members.”

But faculty members say the issue is less about formal assurances than about institutional response in moments of conflict. Some professors see a pattern of cautious disengagement — an effort to minimize controversy rather than confront it.

“I think it’s more about what they have not done,” said one professor in the School of Science and Engineering who requested anonymity for concern of retribution. “They haven’t assured us that they’ve got our backs when we have these difficult conversations in the classroom.”

“Tulane has fostered a culture of fear,” said Casey Beck, a professor of practice in the Tulane School of Liberal Arts and director of the Digital Media Practices program. “I feel like everyone on campus is afraid to speak their mind. Everyone except for administration.”

James Cronin is a senior professor of practice in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. He received his Ph.D. from Tulane in 1990. 

Cronin noted the change in directives made by the Tulane administration over the years. 

“What’s the underlying principle driving all this? Or are you just following the political whim of that particular moment?” Cronin said. “We were told to add all kinds of progressive language to a syllabi before and then Trump comes along, and then we’re told to scrub all that language from a syllabi.”

Cronin called out the administration for failing to communicate with the faculty.

“Tulane can write some extremely beautifully worded, inspirational [and] philosophical statements that actually nobody’s going to read, but there’s no purpose whatsoever,” Cronin said. 

“What should be happening is the academic administrators, the provost, the presidents [and] the dean should be standing shoulder to shoulder, and should be communicating with the general public in a clear, accessible way.” 

Self-censorship, uneven protections

The most pervasive effect, faculty said, is not punishment from Tulane but self-censorship. 

A recent survey of 4,000 faculty members across the country found that nearly a third had censored their own work, as reported by the Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Some faculty reported that this trend extends to Tulane.

“I know several people who are self-censoring out of fear of what would happen if they spoke their mind freely,” Beck said. 

Beck explained that the university has emphasized that faculty have academic freedom. “The underlying sentiment there is that postdocs, graduate students [and] staff, do not,” Beck said. “I think it hamstrings the research mission of the university when it says only certain groups of people get certain rights.”

Tulane’s faculty handbook states that while academic personnel like graduate students and administrative faculty are not designated as faculty, the same rights and responsibilities associated with academic freedom apply. 

Still, non-tenure-track faculty, postdoctoral researchers and staff scientists often lack the protections afforded to tenured professors, making them more vulnerable to indirect forms of discipline.

According to Ward, “[adjuncts] see only certain people getting access to job applications and tenure track positions, and as a result, there is a steady encouragement for them to keep their mouths shut,” Ward said.

“All the higher-ups have to do is not offer them a contract the next semester,” Ward said. They just say we don’t have room for you in our department next year.”

Political pressure on classrooms

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has dedicated significant effort to reshaping higher education through funding threats and lawsuits. 

21 states currently have laws that ban diversity efforts or “divisive concepts” related to race and gender. While a number of bills have been proposed in Louisiana, so far, none have been passed into law. 

Louisiana lawmakers have recently advanced legislation aimed at protecting faculty free speech, while simultaneously narrowing its scope through amendments. The bill prohibits public universities from punishing professors for teaching controversial material or expressing views in their research and public statements. 

But lawmakers revised the proposal, limiting protections to speech consistent with existing law and removing stronger enforcement mechanisms.

“When you start having universities be co-opted by too much corporate influence … federal pressure or even too much state pressure, it really does change the whole dynamic of what a university is for,” Michelle Lacey, a professor of mathematics, said. 

Ward said administrators have changed verbiage in school policies and limited professors’ ability to discuss environmental law, gender and sexuality and especially, diversity, equity and inclusion. 

Tulane shuttered its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion office in March 2025, replacing it with the Office of Academic Excellence and Opportunity. The closure followed a letter from the U.S. Department of Education that called for all educational institutions to end racially-conscious practices or risk losing federal funding.

Amy George, a senior professor of practice in the department of Spanish and Portuguese, has borne witness to the changing classroom climate at Tulane over three decades, having spent “[her] entire adult life” at Tulane. George earned her undergraduate degree and her Ph.D. in Latin American Studies from Tulane and has taught in the department since 2006. 

“I’ve always thought that Tulane was a really comfortable and welcoming space for everyone,” she said. “I always really believed that we could talk about difficult subjects in respectful ways, and I feel disillusioned that that belief is being questioned by the dismissal of my colleagues, by the elimination of classes about difficult subjects, by my students walking out the door and being told they don’t exist.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article stated that Michelle Lacey was an associate professor. Her correct title is professor of mathematics.