I write as a former editor of The Auburn Plainsman, as an Auburn alumnus and as someone who cares deeply about the university that helped shape my life.
In 1961, as editor of this newspaper, I wrote a front-page editorial supporting the Freedom Riders after their bus was firebombed in Anniston and mobs attacked them in Birmingham. The reaction at Auburn was harsh. The Ku Klux Klan burned a cross outside my fraternity house. Students burned copies of the paper and my effigy. University officials threatened disciplinary action. The governor of Alabama was furious. Yet I have never regretted writing that editorial. On the contrary, I have long believed that the experience helped launch my career in the U.S. Foreign Service.
Sixty years later, Auburn honored me with its Lifetime Achievement Award. That meant a great deal to me, not only personally, but because it suggested that Auburn had come to value the independence and moral courage that had once made university authorities so uncomfortable.
For that reason, I’m deeply troubled by recent reports that Auburn’s Board of Trustees has moved to dissolve the Faculty Senate and assert greater control over curriculum. I do not pretend to know the details, and I recognize that universities, especially public universities, must be accountable to students, parents, taxpayers and the people of Alabama. But accountability is not the same as political control.
A university is not merely a state agency. It is a community of teaching, learning, scholarship, argument, discovery and criticism. Trustees and administrators have rightful responsibilities. But faculty also have an indispensable role, especially in curriculum, academic standards, tenure and the intellectual life of the university. To weaken or abolish meaningful faculty governance is to weaken the university itself.
What is happening at Auburn appears to be part of a larger pattern. In several states, legislatures and politically appointed boards are moving to restrict what may be taught, weaken tenure, reduce faculty authority, and bring curriculum more directly under political supervision. These efforts are often described as promoting “accountability,” “transparency” or “intellectual diversity.” Those are worthy goals. But they can also become slogans used to justify partisan interference.
Let me be clear: universities should not dismiss all criticism as misplaced. Many Americans have legitimate concerns that some campuses have become intellectually narrow, especially in parts of the humanities and social sciences. I share those concerns.
Conservative students, religious students, veterans and others outside prevailing campus orthodoxies should never feel unwelcome or silenced. Auburn should expose students to serious arguments across the political, historical, moral and philosophical spectrum. Students should be taught how to think, not what to think.
But genuine intellectual diversity cannot be imposed by political intimidation. It will not be achieved by dissolving faculty bodies, weakening tenure, or placing academic judgment under the shadow of partisan power. That path leads not to better education, but to caution, conformity and self-censorship. Good scholars and promising students will go elsewhere. Those who remain will learn to avoid difficult subjects rather than examine them honestly.
Auburn’s greatness has never depended on intellectual timidity. It has depended on teaching, discipline, public service, scientific achievement, professional preparation, hard work and a “spirit that is unafraid.” The Auburn I loved, and still love, was not perfect. In my day, it reflected many of the prejudices and pressures of Alabama in the civil-rights era. But it also gave a young student editor enough room, however contested, to speak a hard truth.
I hope The Plainsman will continue to defend that space. I hope Auburn’s faculty will speak with clarity and courage. I hope alumni will pay attention. And I hope Auburn’s leaders will understand that protecting academic freedom is an act of loyalty to what a university is supposed to be.
Academic freedom and public accountability need not be enemies. Auburn should embrace both. It should address legitimate concerns about quality, rigor, accountability, and viewpoint diversity. But it should do so through open debate, shared governance and institutional self-correction—not through measures that place academic life under political control.
Auburn once helped shape my life because, in a difficult time, The Plainsman could still speak. I hope it will speak now.
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