Currently reading Nooij et al. (2025) on “Do not leave your values at the door; the permissibility of activism in the lecture hall”

Academia and activism, how do they go together? I’ve been curious about that for a while, as evidenced by these posts. Today I came across an article that investigates not only academic activism, but activism in the classroom.

Nooij et al. (2025) retort the idea that normative statements do not belong in the classroom by reminding us that

1. “academia is already value-laden” (of course it is — they are part of, and shaped by, society; and that is why universities have mission statements that they are proud of! And as they write later: “The fact that we choose, for instance, to have courses on road traffic safety and accident reduction is in itself already an expression of the fact that addressing pressing challenges is in part what matters for our choice of what topics to lecture on.“)
2. truth-telling, meaning discussing something that can be empirically proven, can be seen as activism (in their example, showing the reality of how animals are kept in mass farming. They write that “Labelling academics who expose the realities of the animal-industrial complex as activists overlooks a crucial point: because of the secretive nature of the industries, students might never come across and therefore never be exposed to the footage. Not revealing these blind spots constitutes a conscious decision that upholds the status quo and ultimately blocks honest discourse“)
3. descriptive knowledge viewed through normative lenses (even those that most universities agree upon) can mean a duty to act!

Universities pride themselves on academic freedom, the right that teachers have to teach their subject without external control. But a teacher’s freedom to teach can confine a student’s freedom to learn, which is where the idea that academic should be as objective as possible (AOAP) comes from. However, as Nooij et al. (2025) write, “this position fails to consider that the refusal to take an explicit position on known events as a scholar is itself a stance“, similarly to how accepting the university’s values without questioning them is also a moral position: “Tacit acceptance is still acceptance, which shapes universities“.

The authors then discuss a scale of activism from no activism (like discussing scientific data or one’s own perspective), which they judge as “definitively permissible; a university cannot expect a lecturer to omit their own perspective permanently, nor should scientific data ever be censored for receiving the label ‘activist’“. Light activism, like wearing buttons, signing petitions to the university board, writing op-eds in the university newsletter, inviting activists as guest speakers and participating in campus protests, are “potentially permissible”, since they are “non-violent forms of activism, and include acts that do not directly harm students, but could harm the perceived objectivity of a lecturer” (but then, we already concluded that nobody is objective anyway…). Lastly, radical activism like distorting alternative ideas in teaching, intimidating staff or students, or calling to, or enacting, violence, is judged as categorically impermissible by the authors.

Nooij et al. (2025) observe that “[t]here appears to be a spectrum of acceptance regarding activism by scientists and lecturers, which depends on how closely their activism aligns with the Overton Window – that is, the range of policies considered politically acceptable by mainstream society.” They also observe that “truth-telling is often branded as activism when reality is uncomfortable“. Lastly, they conclude that “[u]niversities should function as institutions where discourse and debate are not only possible, but fostered. Only then can universities function as institutions of knowledge, rather than idiosyncratic institutes of embedded ideologies. Only then can universities play a key role in societal transitions.”

I think this article is super helpful to make the point that inaction isn’t neutral, and that what is perceived as activism and permissible (as long as it is non-violent, non-destructive, non-threatening, obviously) depends a lot on whether people agree with the stance, and on whether people are aware that they are not objective themselves. This is a great article to discuss in future (or even the ongoing!) courses on Teaching for Sustainability to help demystify activism and encourage the telling of uncomfortable truths (which is also important for other reasons, see also the Hope Wheel!).

Nooij, J. M., Collin, N. D. H. & van den Berg, F. (2025). “Do not leave your values at the door; the permissibility of activism in the lecture hall”, Higher Education Research & Development, 44:6, 1512-1527, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2025.2514508

And for today’s wave watching, please enjoy these beautiful pictures from my foggy morning dip!

It looks almost hazy or like smog, but it was just normal fog!

And a very calm, almost oily-looking surface…

Fog always makes things look a little bit unreal!

Apparently the water was 19 degrees warm still!

In any case, it was nice to be in the water!

And the fog was really just a low layer on the ground that vanished quickly.

Sooo pretty!

Look, most of the fog gone already…