The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education put Doane University on its 2020 list of "Worst Colleges for Free Speech."
The private university in Crete landed on FIRE's list after the display of historical photos — including depictions of Doane students engaged in racist behavior nearly a century ago — led to a faculty member being placed on leave.
“Doane makes very strong promises of academic freedom,†said Alex Morey, a program officer in FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program. “But after what happened to Melissa Gomis, Doane faculty still have extremely serious concerns about whether they can broach tough civic issues without being investigated for harassment.â€
Gomis, director of the Perkins Library, created the exhibit from materials available in Doane’s archive and removed the two photos depicting students wearing blackface at a 1926 Halloween masquerade party after a student brought concerns to her.
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The “Parties of the Past†display outside the library was later taken down entirely as administrators issued an email apology to students, faculty and staff for the racist photos and pledged to investigate.
As part of investigation, Doane said Gomis may have violated the university’s policy on “discriminatory harassment†and placed her on leave.
The action enraged Doane’s faculty, who called the move censorship and said it violated the associate professor’s rights of academic freedom and due process.
FIRE and the National Coalition Against Censorship later sent a letter to Doane asking for it to clarify its policies regarding the long-held cornerstones of academia, but an attorney representing Doane told the organizations simply: “Doane University does not and will not comment on internal employee issues.â€
Gomis was later reinstated, but FIRE said Doane had not gone far enough to demonstrate its commitment to academic freedom, specifically in allowing faculty and staff to choose what material — even offensive material — to discuss in their classrooms or display in public spaces on campus.
In a statement, Doane disputed FIRE’s characterizations: “The notion that Doane has done nothing to allay faculty’s fears they may be censored if the university finds their speech objectionable is false."
Top administrators and a faculty council have begun hammering out a new academic freedom policy better articulating the rights and responsibilities for employees, and recently has pivoted to defining the processes employees can follow if they feel the university has violated their rights, the statement added.
Chris Wentworth, president of the Doane chapter of the American Association of University Professors, concurred some good has come out of the incident last April.
Three seminars about academic freedom have raised awareness of the issue on campus among faculty, administrators and board members, he said, and the work to develop a grievance procedure was overdue.
"I think Doane University deserved its place on the FIRE 10 Worst Colleges for Free Speech in 2020," Wentworth wrote in an email, "but I also think we are moving in the right direction."
Gomis is also working on a policy on how to display controversial items from the university library archive, Doane said. Gomis, reached by phone, declined to comment.
The 2020 list marks the first time a college or university in Nebraska has appeared on FIRE’s annual list since it began highlighting what it says are the biggest violators of academic freedom on campus in 2011.
The other universities appearing on the 2020 list include: University of Connecticut; Harvard University and Babson College in Massachusetts; Jones County Junior College in Mississippi; Portland State University in Oregon; Long Island University Post and Syracuse University in New York; and Middlebury College in Vermont.
This story was updated on Jan. 30, 2020 at 4:10 p.m.