Dear John,

As faculty editors for the next volume of the AAUP's Journal of Academic Freedom, scheduled for publication this fall, we are writing to remind you about our call for papers, "Memory Laws or Gag Laws? Disinformation Meets Academic Freedom." Submissions are due by March 10, 2022.

We are excited to build on the Journal's growing reputation as an online, open-access forum that engages scholars from across a wide range of academic disciplines in discussions about the most pressing challenges to academic freedom in the United States and abroad while also providing deeper analysis of historical and contemporary efforts to bolster and advance academic freedom and shared governance. As members and past officers of United Academics of the University of Oregon who have also served in leadership roles for the Oregon state AAUP conference, we believe in the power of organizing and collective bargaining to support higher education that serves the common good, and we have a strong interest in building bridges between scholarship and academic activism.

Our call for papers was inspired by last year’s onslaught of partisan legislation that targeted teaching about race and racism in K–12 schools and, in many states, at public colleges and universities. The onslaught continues this year as new bills make their way through state legislatures and as politicians stoke fears that learning about the history and legacies of genocide, slavery, and systemic racism will make white students uncomfortable. While such external interference poses immediate threats to the academic freedom of many US educators, we encourage prospective authors to consider these threats in a broader, international context—where we see precedents for crossing the line between memory laws that aim to prevent disinformation and gag laws that promote disinformation.

We welcome submissions on any topic related to academic freedom by all faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars. Please review the Journal’s editorial policy and the complete call for papers prior to submission. In selecting articles for the volume, we are especially interested in the topics below but also encourage you to reach out to us with other ideas and any questions.

• Book and idea bans, educational gag order bills, and other forms of censorship.
• The 1619 Project versus the 1776 Project, and the academic profession.
• Doublespeak in educational policy, including the use of free speech rhetoric to suppress education about racial, gender, and LQBTQ+ inequalities.
• Strategies for truthful pedagogies and content on racism, racial inequality, and oppression.
• Features of recent Republican “memory laws” or case studies of legislation in specific states such as Florida or Texas.
• Attacks on Black history, critical race theory, and ethnic, Indigenous, and gender studies.
• Indigenous peoples’ history and decolonization struggles.
• Comparative approaches to memory laws, history, and academic freedom.

Best regards,
Michael Dreiling and Pedro García-Caro

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