A colleague I very much respect who teaches at a university in a solidly blue coastal state recently posted on social media that it is unethical for academics to continue working in states that have undermined academic freedom and imposed censorship. It was not the first time I’ve been told that academics who teach at public institutions in places like Florida, or my current home state of Texas, are, at best, complicit in the assault on higher education and, at worst, legitimizing it.
These calls are motivated by justified anger. However, this language embodies a growing rhetorical pattern that needs to stop.
When academics in more comfortable political climates declare it unethical for the rest of us to remain and to fight, they undercut the solidarity necessary to help move toward the kind of world they want to see. Judgments against those who do the work of teaching, researching and mentoring under increasingly difficult conditions do not help. More importantly, calls for an academic exodus would have us abandon vulnerable students who need us the most.
The students most affected by the misguided and dangerous political interference in my state are often those with the fewest alternatives. Most of my first-generation college students, working-class students, rural students, students of color or LGBTQ+ students are dependent on the pockets of support they have made for themselves. They live at home, they support their families and, in the face of mounting tuition costs, they rely on the in-state tuition rates of public universities. They cannot suddenly gain access to institutions and communities elsewhere. Nor can most of my colleagues.
Calls for academic boycotts often invoke historical precedent. And history does indeed show that boycotts can work. But they are most effective when they emerge from and are led by those directly affected. The Montgomery bus boycott did not begin in coastal conference rooms with demands for the exodus of Black Alabamians. It was organized by Black residents in Montgomery who intimately understood the risks and challenges of their endeavor and chose to fight at home. External allies had important roles to play, but they followed the leadership of those on the ground. They did not announce, from afar, that remaining in Montgomery was unethical.
There are many problems with this analogy, and the stakes are undeniably very different. But the lesson still applies. Solidarity means amplifying local voices, not outside appeals. When scholars outside Texas and Florida declare that colleagues should quit, they risk turning a complex set of personal, professional and ethical choices into a too-tidy litmus test. They also risk erasing the agency of those who choose to stay out of commitment, not complacency.
Many of us remain precisely because we know that our presence matters. We stay to defend our curriculum, to build coalitions across our campuses and our communities, and most importantly to support our students. Our leaving would not punish legislators. It would reward them. Worse, it would weaken the institutions upon which our students rely. Staying is not always the easier choice. Sometimes it is the far harder one.
Some scholars have made the choice to leave, or to turn down lucrative opportunities to come here in the first place. And those choices deserve respect. But the choices of those who stay and fight also deserve respect. These decisions ought to be made by those living the reality here and not imposed by colleagues who face none of the immediate consequences.
What then should colleagues outside these states do? The answer is not silence. Your anger and your anxiety are reasonable. Our moment is dangerous. Your criticism of the politically motivated degradation of education and of the widespread capitulation of administrators is justified and in fact essential. But the tone and direction of that criticism matters. Instead of lecturing faculty in Texas or Florida, allies can amplify the inspiring statements that are issued by organizers on the ground. There are myriad opportunities for financial donations to help those who are losing their jobs or who have legal fees necessary to hold the line. Statements from professional societies offer important help, as do individual expressions of support.
But anyone concerned with the fate of higher education should not treat entire states or regions as lost causes. And no one should allow themselves to think their geographic position is an indicator of their moral worth. Moral distance is not moral superiority.
When we frame the professional decisions or material constraints of our colleagues as ethical failures, we further fracture communities that require solidarity. We also overlook the uneven geography of higher education in the United States. The large public systems in Texas and Florida serve enormous and rapidly growing populations of diverse students. Demanding that faculty of conscience abandon them is immoral.
Those of us who work in these states will not deny the dangers of our present moment. To the contrary, we see them with our own two eyes. For us they are tangible and immediate, not imaginary and distant. But we also see classrooms full of students who are eager to learn. We see colleagues who are building power to resist. We even, sometimes, though too rarely, see administrators pushing back or designing effective workarounds. Indeed, every day faculty are performing the hidden work of quiet but effective everyday resistance that is invisible to those outside our community. But just because it doesn’t make prominent coastal newspapers does not mean it’s not happening. Our struggle requires patience and persistence, not surrender.
We do not need to be lectured. We do not need to be rescued. What we need is support. Many of us see staying not as an ethical failure, but as the very fulfillment of our values.
Ben Wright is an associate professor of history at the University of Texas at Dallas.