Academic Freedom is sure to offend some readers and invigorate others.

Inside Higher Ed reports.

New book critiques campus censorship movement and pushes for marketplace of ideas

There’s no shortage of criticism of what’s been described as the student censorship movement, which has included banning (or at least student demands to ban) controversial speakers, discussions and art from colleges and universities. The latest critique, Academic Freedom in an Age of Conformity: Confronting the Fear of Knowledge (Palgrave Macmillan) comes from Britain, which has seen its own set of parallel events on its campuses. But author Joanna Williams, a senior lecturer of higher education at the University of Kent and education editor at Spiked, rebukes students in Britain and the U.S. (and their professors, from whom she says they’ve learned bad habits) in equal measure.

Ultimately Williams proposes a model of academic freedom as a “marketplace of ideas” in which even the most contentious proposals must be aired for truth or consensus to be achieved. Everyone — even climate change skeptics — gets to participate in the discussion, regardless of his or her expertise, point of view or privilege.