Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights

In a case of alleged racism by an academic during a Law class at the University of Wisconsin in 2007, CAFAR issued a statement:

When UW Law School professor Leonard Kaplan ended his legal-process class on Feb. 15, there was no sign that he had offended anyone. There were no questions or complaints, and no one approached him afterward. Yet offend he did, during a discussion about conflicts between culture and the legal system in which he used Hmong immigrants as an example.

A few days later, third-year law student KaShia Moua sent an e-mail citing four 'incredibly offensive and racist' remarks she said Kaplan had made during a '10-minute rant about the Hmong.' Among them: 'Hmong men have no skills other than killing' and 'All second-generation Hmong end up in gangs and other criminal activity.'

Proclaiming that Kaplan 'has violated our rights as students,' Moua called a meeting 'to hold Kaplan and our administration accountable.' Moua did not reveal she was not in the class and received her information secondhand.

Downs was quoted putting the CAFAR position:

'The rush to judgment in this case has been extremely unsettling,' says professor Donald Downs, author of Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus. 'How can you make a valid assessment about whether a line was crossed in this case unless you seriously consider the academic freedom issue? That hasn't been part of the discussion that's come out of the law school.'

The Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights, headed by Downs, released a statement over the weekend saying it was 'dismayed' by the law school's public response. 'There is a distinct possibility that the emotion and pressures surrounding this case...will have a chilling effect on honest and good-faith discussion of racial and cultural issues in class and on campus.'

Schweber, who like Downs teaches the First Amendment in the political science department, says several faculty have expressed 'fear of being subjected to the kind of attacks that professor Kaplan has experienced' in discussing controversial topics, especially related to race.

According to Downs, in a comment written in April 2010, the committee has been central to campaigns on Academic freedom opposing student and other reforms:

The Madison campus has witnessed as many free speech and academic freedom controversies as any other campus in the nation over the course of the last two decades. We have grappled with such issues as student and faculty speech codes, anonymous complaint boxes, a Reebok speech code, several conflicts relating to the student fee system (including a 2000 Supreme Court case on this issue, Board of Regents v. Southworth), department speech codes masquerading as “professional conduct codes,” numerous student newspaper controversies, student discipline reform, and individual cases implicating faculty members and staff. Academic freedom and free speech have prevailed in these cases because of the political mobilization of faculty members, often led by a unique independent group, the Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights.