Press Room

The National Communication Association’s (NCA) Executive Committee of the Legislative Assembly today approved two new public statements on tenure and academic freedom. These statements are in response to the growing and recent assaults on academic freedom and threats to tenure that are impacting our members, those in the discipline, and all educators (in K-12 and in higher education).

NCA Statement on Academic Freedom 

For several years now, we at the National Communication Association (NCA) have witnessed increasing attacks on academic freedom. These targeted efforts to chill free speech and ban or control academic discussions of race, ethnicity, gender expression, sexual identity, and sexual orientation, among others have targeted the entire range of education settings, from K-12 classrooms to institutions of higher learning. Such efforts have also instilled fear and censored discussions that are vital to the education of students and are a hallmark of a vibrant democracy. They also cause multiple forms of violence and harm against members of marginalized and targeted communities. 

These attacks are part of a long history of oppression in the United States that seeks to maintain the power of dominant groups by suppressing access to education for any peoples who are perceived as a threat to that power. In many cases, they are based in a history of white supremacy, racism, and anti-Blackness. Many of these efforts are also based on trans-phobia. Specifically, there is a clear through-line from laws in the 1830s that forbid teaching enslaved people to read, to laws in the 1900s that explicitly prohibited access to schools (or allowed access only to schools that were unequal) for African Americans, Indigenous peoples, Mexican or Chinese immigrants. Further, that through-line extended to laws that made illegal the use of languages other than English in schools, to the forced education of Indigenous youth stolen and forced into residential schools, to the ongoing efforts to erase the historical reality of the colonial history of the United States and to ban discussion of sexual or gender identity and orientation. 

Today’s attacks must be understood within this larger historical frame of racism, trans-phobia, and intersecting forms of violence against communities. We resist assaults on and the subjugation of those across our Association whose lives, livelihoods, and careers are in jeopardy and under attack. Further, we commit to coordinated organizing and educational efforts that empower them and contribute to their liberation. 

The National Communication Association (NCA) aims to advance Communication scholarship, teaching, and practice to foster a better world. The NCA serves the scholars, teachers, and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, the NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems. The NCA supports inclusiveness and diversity among our faculties, within our membership, in the workplace, and in the classroom; the NCA supports and promotes policies that fairly encourage this diversity and inclusion. 

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NCA Statement on Tenure 
 
In the face of sweeping legislation and the onslaught of attacks on tenure, the National Communication Association (NCA) fervently recognizes and defends the value, privilege, and permanency of tenure in the academy. As an Association, our position reflects the principles and practices fundamental to freedom of expression, the right on which the NCA was founded. The NCA’s Credo for Free and Responsible Communication in a Democratic Society first adopted in 1963 is further evidence of that expression. 
 
Indeed, when one aspect of our academic freedoms is compromised, it jeopardizes the whole of our rights to free expression, thereby threatening the foundation of our civil society. That is why the Association membership remains unwavering in its commitment to ensuring that all academic citizens–faculty, students, and administrators–are supported in their teaching, scholarship, and service activities. 
 
The recent attacks on tenure that we are witnessing, and some of our members are experiencing, have gained regrettable traction across the country. To be sure, politicians and their appointees in decision-making roles have levied unacceptable, inaccurate, and uninformed charges against the value of the “permanency” articulated by the American Association of University Professors over 80 years ago. 
 
As the NCA focuses this year on the concept of "Freedom” as the theme of the 109th Annual Convention in National Harbor, Maryland, our Association supports the reaffirmation and preservation of tenure as fundamental to ensuring the quality of higher education and the free exchange of ideas in society. We reject and oppose any attempts to rescind, alter, or otherwise deny tenure or reappointment to faculty who meet the standards established by their institution. Many are taking strong and courageous stands against unilateral efforts to undermine and destroy tenure and freedom of speech. And with them, we are in solidarity. 
 
The National Communication Association (NCA) aims to advance Communication scholarship, teaching, and practice to foster a better world. The NCA serves the scholars, teachers, and practitioners who are its members by enabling and supporting their professional interests in research and teaching. Dedicated to fostering and promoting free and ethical communication, the NCA promotes the widespread appreciation of the importance of communication in public and private life, the application of competent communication to improve the quality of human life and relationships, and the use of knowledge about communication to solve human problems. The NCA supports inclusiveness and diversity among our faculties, within our membership, in the workplace, and in the classroom; the NCA supports and promotes policies that fairly encourage this diversity and inclusion. 

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