Unfettered Expression: Freedom in American Intellectual Life

A group of major thinkers addresses fundamental questions of intellectual freedom both within and without the academy. The essays in this volume were originally given as lectures in a series established in 1991 to honor three University of Michigan faculty members who, in 1954, refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee and were thereafter suspended or dismissed by the University. The authors reflect on the questions and challenges to academic freedom that the predicament of those three scholars put into such sharp focus.
This readable, yet profound, work brings together the thoughts of Robert M. O'Neil and Lee C. Bollinger on "The Open-Minded Soldier and the University," Catherine Stimpson on "Dirty Minds, Dirty Bodies, and Clean Speech," Walter Metzger on "A Stroll along the New Frontiers of Academic Freedom," Linda Ray Pratt on "Academic Freedom and the Merits of Uncertainty," Roger Wilkins on "Opportunity and Academic Integrity," Eugene L. Roberts, Jr. on "Free Speech, Free Press, Free Society," and David A. Hollinger on "Money and Academic Freedom a Half-Century after McCarthyism." Avern Cohn brings a different perspective to bear with his thoughts on academic freedom from a trial judge's point of view.
This is a book of interest to all concerned with the fundamental issues of intellectual freedom and the right to hold nonconforming views.
Peggie J. Hollingsworth is Assistant Research Scientist, Environmental-Industrial Health Department, School of Public Health, University of Michigan.