Neoliberals debated whether academic freedom rules protected or hampered their own minority project

Evidence

The question would surface as neoliberals considered the appropriate attitude to take towards established principles of academic freedom. At the MPS, the president of Brooklyn College (and later the New School of Social Research) Harry Gideonse became the standard-bearer for the position that an imminent communist threat rendered principles of academic freedom quaint. He argued for suspending tenure protection for communists and purging them from the professorate. On the other hand, MPS members were keenly aware that they themselves were an intellectual minority. Did rules supporting academic freedom help or hinder neoliberal aims? — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 123

Categorization

• XREF: Directly complicates the crude caricature that neoliberalism = hands-off libertarianism; shows them actively considering purging communists from academia. — connects to: Neoliberal freedom-of-inquiry rhetoric was aimed at promoting their own market views within academia — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 122
• SEED: Interesting essay angle: ‘academic freedom’ as a weapon minority movements debate wielding — when do insurgent doctrines prefer purge over pluralism?

Broader Connections

• Neoliberal freedom-of-inquiry rhetoric was aimed at promoting their own market views within academia #expands (0.90) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 122