In an interview with Inside Higher Education, Jason Stanley makes a number of claims about academic freedom and support for free-market capitalism that are worth questioning.

Stanley rightly calls out Turning Point USA for its “Professor Watchlist,” which targets left-leaning faculty members. He says that these sorts of organizations “specifically target academics who deviate from the myths that support American far-right ideology. They try to intimidate into silence scholars whose work reveals the complexities and contradictions of capitalism […] By harshly attacking those who seek to show the truth in its full complexity, the organizations you mention undermine the search for truth. This is the essence of anti-intellectualism; it is an attack on truth.”

I agree that academics ought not to be targeted for their political views. We should debate those with whom we disagree rather than intimidate them into silence.

However, this is not a uniquely “right-wing” problem. Consider, for instance, that the left-leaning group “UnKoch My Campus” also lists and targets professors for political reasons.  Partisans on all sides are happy to target academics whose research they dislike.

I also agree with Stanley that “if universities are to retain their values, it will be key for university administrators to hold the line, specifically to protect controversial faculty members — of whatever ideological stripe — who challenge the status quo.” Although Stanley gives a nod to professors of “whatever ideological stripe,” his substantive concern is exclusively focused on the“right-wing” threat to academic freedom. But is this really the biggest threat? After all, conservative faculty members are fired for political speech at a higher rate than liberal faculty members and report significantly more hostility toward their political views from their peers.

Lastly, I would be remiss for not mentioning Stanley’s insinuation that support for free-market capitalism places one in the fascist tradition rather than the (classical) liberal one. In response to the question, “Do you believe we are in a period in which fascist ideas pose a danger to the values of academe?,” Stanley begins his reply by stating “There is an unprecedented tidal wave of money directed at universities to help promote unfettered free market capitalism — that remains, I think, the greatest danger to the autonomy of the university in the United States today.” The implication seems to be that support for free-market capitalism is one of the fascist ideas that poses a threat to the values of academia. (But Marxism, Stanley says, at least has “some notion of equality as an ideal.”)

To group free-market capitalism with a number of odious and illiberal principles as Stanley does is not only a failure of charity toward the many liberal defenses of capitalism, it ignores the fact that fascism has been explicitly opposed to classical liberal capitalism. Here’s Mussolini himself: “Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity. It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people.”

[Edit: A reader suggests that Stanley is not claiming that free-market capitalism itself should be considered part of “fascist politics,” but that supporters of capitalism (“business elites”) may use fascist politics strategically. First, the major donors to free market programs, such as the Kochs, are explicitly pro-immigration, pro-trade, and pro-prison reform. It is, at a minimum, uncharitable to link them to “fascist politics.” Second, if capitalism itself is liberal, then it’s not clear to me why financial support for it is more problematic than financial support for other liberal ideas in academia.]

As I stated above, I am in complete agreement with Stanley that the university ought to be a place where academics can speak and debate freely in the pursuit of truth. But we don’t do ourselves any favors when we fail to address threats to academic freedom that come from the other side of the political aisle.