Juan says: I’m honored to have an essay in this volume on threats to academic freedom and to free speech in the United States since 2023. I look at the crisis as it unfolded in is first months. All of the essays are urgent reading during America’s current Third Red Scare. I have been in higher education as a student or professor for over five decades, and I have never seen things as bad as they are now. This courageous book diagnoses our current national pathology.
“The essays collected in In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis: Activism and the Struggle for Academic Freedom honor the life and legacy of H. Chandler Davis (1926–2022), a mathematician, writer, and fearless defender of intellectual freedom. Davis, then a young faculty member at the University of Michigan, became a symbol of principled dissent when he was suspended and ultimately dismissed in 1954 for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Unlike many who invoked the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination, Davis based his refusal solely on the First Amendment guarantee of free speech -— staking his livelihood and liberty on the principle that no government body had the right to police ideas. Convicted of contempt of Congress, he served six months in prison before rebuilding his career in Canada, where he became a brilliant mathematician, editor, and advocate for justice, equality, and peace.
This volume brings together a wide-ranging group of voices—historians, legal scholars, educators, civil liberties advocates, and public intellectuals—who situate Davis’s legacy within today’s escalating threats to free inquiry. Their essays examine the recurring dangers of political repression and censorship, from McCarthy-era loyalty investigations to today’s book bans, surveillance of campus protest, suppression of speech on Palestine, and the chilling effects of so-called “institutional neutrality.” Collectively, they show how fear and authoritarian pressures undermine the independence of universities and the right to free expression.
Also included are posthumously published writings by Chandler Davis and by his wife, the eminent historian Natalie Zemon Davis. Their reflections on persecution and resistance underscore the enduring importance of refusing silence in the face of intimidation.
At once historical and urgently contemporary, In the Spirit of H. Chandler Davis makes clear that defending academic freedom is inseparable from defending democracy itself. Inspired by Davis’s courage and integrity, the book offers powerful insights into why intellectual independence and institutional autonomy remain vital—and why they must be defended wherever they are under attack.
What people are saying about the book:
The arch of the moral university does not bend towards justice of its own accord. It does so because of those who stand and fight the authoritarians and the fascists. Today, when so many are cowering, or worse, capitulating, it becomes important to reflect on those like H. Chandler Davis who continued to demand justice even during the darkest of times.
— ISAAC KAMOLA, author of Manufacturing Backlash
This remarkable volume breathes with the spirit of resistance and resilience as we strive to stand up against today’s official assault on academic and intellectual freedom.
— HOWARD BRICK Professor of History Emeritus, University of Michigan
Editors Bios:
Michael Atzmon is Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering & Radiological Sciences and Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research included experimental and theoretical studies of nanomaterials and metallic glasses. He has been involved with the Davis-Markert-Nickerson Lecture for the past decade.
John Cheney-Lippold is Associate Professor of American Culture and Digital Studies at the University of Michigan. He is author of We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of our Digital Selves and currently researches and writes on digital technology, power, and culture.
Gary D. Krenz retired recently from the directorship of the historic Judy and Stanley Frankel Detroit Observatory at the University of Michigan. In the course of his career at U-M, he held a number of administrative roles and lectured in philosophy on ethics, particularly ethics of higher education.
Melanie S. Tanielian is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Michigan whose research focuses on war, famine, and humanitarianism in the modern Middle East. She is the author of The Charity of War: Famine, Humanitarian Aid, and World War I in the Middle East and is currently expanding her work to examine the politics of food insecurity and humanitarian response in the region today. Her scholarship bridges past and present to illuminate how societies confront crisis and care.”
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