Academic Freedom & Constitutional Rights in a Time of Crisis

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A Constitution Day Discussion with Geoffrey Stone and Valerie C. Johnson

At a moment when scholars worry about threats to academic freedom, this Constitution Day discussion will look at the First Amendment protections for academic freedom, which are the subject of a new book co-edited by Geoffrey Stone, Academic Freedom in the Era of Trump, which brings together legal scholars with many perspectives on the academic freedom debate. 

• Geoffrey R. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, where he has been Dean of the Law School, Provost, and chair of the committee that wrote the “Chicago Principles.” He is a preeminent scholar of Constitutional law, and the author of dozens of books about the subject. His most recent book, co-edited with Lee Bollinger, is Academic Freedom in the Era of Trump, which is being published by Oxford University Press on September 9, 2026. 
• Valerie C. Johnson is Professor of Political Science at DePaul University and Associate Provost for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Her publications include Black Power in the Suburbs: The Myth or Reality of African American Suburban Political Incorporation and Power in the City. Her latest book, co-edited with Ellen Schrecker and Jennifer Ruth, is The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Higher Education (Beacon Press, 2024). 
• Moderator: John K. Wilson of the Illinois AAUP, who writes the Debatable Ideas column for Inside Higher Ed, and is the author of several books including Patriotic Correctness: Academic Freedom and Its Enemies and the forthcoming book, The Attack on Academia. Mickey Huff, executive director of Project Censored and Distinguished Director of the Park Center for Independent Media and Professor of Journalism at the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College, is hosting and introducing the event and will facilitate audience participation. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Illinois conference of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Project Censored, a nonprofit that promotes critical media literacy, independent journalism, and civic engagement, and the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College.