ABSTRACT
During the 2022 legislative session, 137 educational gag orders that seek to substitute political mandates for the judgment of professional educators were introduced in 36 states. Already law in 7 states, these legislative efforts are increasingly targeting higher education, with 47 of the latest proposals explicitly aimed at prohibiting or limiting discussions of systemic racism, anti-racist theory, white privilege, gender identity, and reproductive rights on college and university campuses. In addition, the penalties, ranging from fines and the loss of state funding to the elimination of tenure, the termination of faculty, and the filing of criminal charges against violators, are becoming harsher. This chapter examines the dilemma of college administrators leading public institutions in states that have imposed educational gag orders, which pose an existential threat to the academic enterprise, within the context of a public administrator's duty to further the public interest and maintain the public trust.
