by Jenna Queenan

Education has long been a site of political contestation. While the job of an educator, first and foremost, is to design and shape the experiences of students in schools, the boundaries of schools and universities themselves are porous. Students bring their full lives into the classroom and as such, political issues outside of schools are still issues that educators must make space for in their pedagogy (Anyon, 2005; Berliner, 2013; Paris & Alim, 2017). Additionally, because we live in a political world and one’s conscious and unconscious beliefs influence one’s actions, including pedagogy, everything is political, including the classroom (Freire, 1970; hooks, 1994). Critical pedagogies – culturally sustaining, social justice, student-centered, anti-racist, decolonizing, abolitionist – ask us as educators to explicitly address issues of power, oppression, and resistance by developing the critical consciousness of young people and connecting their (our) learning to the world. Engaging in critical pedagogies requires that, as professors, we are adaptable and honest, naming issues of power and allowing space for students to discuss their questions, concerns, and ideas openly. Critical pedagogies do not mean everyone in the class should have the same politics, but they do necessitate that we, as professors and students, be allowed to openly discuss issues and topics of contestation and concern. What happens, though, when academic freedom is under threat? What do these threats do to the critical pedagogies that ask us to connect the classroom to the world outside?

While threats to academic freedom and critical pedagogies are not new, the current federal administration has increased attacks on colleges, universities, and PK-12 public schools in an attempt to exert right-wing ideological control. Some university administrations have resisted but, as the American Association of University Professors said in a statement released in January 2025,

Unfortunately, troubling recent events suggest that some administrations are not only acquiescing to attacks on fundamental principles but engaging in what scholars of authoritarianism call anticipatory obedience—that is, they are acting to comply in advance of any pressure to do so.

Institutional silences and anticipatory obedience have consequences. On an individual level, some are choosing not to teach specific words or topics (Palestine, trans and queer identities, DEI, white supremacy, the list goes on) or read banned books out of fear or, in some cases, perhaps agreement with the silencing. And while, as Audre Lorde and others remind us that our silence won’t protect us (Lorde, 2017), some who do continue to utilize more critical pedagogies have faced consequences (Bishop & Fine, 2025). For example, at CUNY, four adjunct professors at Brooklyn College were fired and/or non-reappointed because of their support for Brooklyn College students protesting in solidarity with Palestine (Estrine, 2025; Featherstone, 2025; Mansoor, 2025). This university and individual anticipatory obedience has not been accepted wholeheartedly, however. There is a growing movement of resistance, as evidenced by the statement by AAUP cited above and the grassroots and CUNY-PSC campaign to reinstate the fired four. In some cases, resistance works. In mid-January of this year, CUNY reinstated three of the four. However, the fourth, who was fired for “conduct unbecoming,” is now on a CUNY-wide no hire list. And so the fight continues (see more and sign the petition here to support).

As a TLC fellow, I am interested in how the current political climate impacts how CUNY graduate students and adjunct professors navigate politics in their own classrooms. In November, I co-facilitated a TLC workshop titled, “Navigating Politics in the Classroom” in which participants voiced numerous concerns about bringing up current events and how to do so. Some of these concerns include:

• Class-level concerns: upsetting students, navigating conflict with and amongst students, losing control of the classroom, not knowing how to bring politics into a class where the content isn’t about “politics,” and large class sizes that make it harder to know individual students.
• Department level concerns: bad reviews, not knowing the politics and norms of the department, and, for graduate students who are teaching assistants, relationships with the professors with whom they teach.
• University level concerns: losing their jobs, doxxing, the weaponization of Title IV, and not being hired for future positions. These concerns were particularly true for participants who are international students and wanted to bring up issues like Palestine, race and white supremacy, and queerness but were also worried about being detained and/or deported.

In some ways, these concerns speak to the need for increased training around critical pedagogies of care that have a long history in CUNY classrooms. The TLC put together a list of pedagogical moves one can make and resources to address politics in the classroom and engage in critical pedagogies, which we also discussed in the workshop. The workshop was made up of PhD students at the Graduate Center, across a variety of disciplines, who are working as adjuncts and teaching assistants at different CUNY colleges. As professors new to teaching, workshop participants discussed navigating how to present course content, understanding CUNY students and what’s happening in the world, and how much of themselves to bring to the classroom. While there is no one right way to utilize critical pedagogies and bring up contested topics in the classroom, we discussed a few key pedagogical moves, including:

• Building relationships with and amongst students through icebreakers, small group discussions, and assignments that ask students to connect course content to their lives. The thinking behind this is that the more you know students and they know you/each other, the more equipped they will be to engage in conflict and the less likely they will be to dox you. While this may not always be the case (and admittedly more challenging in larger classes), showing students you care about them as individuals humanizes all of us.
• Collectively creating a set of classroom community agreements that distinguish between disagreement and harm by setting explicit boundaries around harmful (i.e. racist, sexist, homophobic, etc) behavior and discuss how students in the class want to negotiate and approach disagreement.
• When facilitating a discussion on a contentious topic, start with free writing, ask students to root their comments in their own lives and speak from the “I,” ground perspectives in concrete examples, and use facilitation moves like asking follow-up questions and pausing the discussion if/when things get heated.

While these pedagogical moves are a start, at the same time, graduate student concerns also highlight the important role of the union and university administration in defending academic freedom for all university instructors, whether tenured or not. Public universities have a long history of being both sites of harm and liberatory praxis and pedagogy (Reed, 2023); it is up to us to ensure that CUNY turns away from harm and toward solidarity with all students, staff, and faculty, including adjuncts. To do this, we must resist anticipatory obedience individually (in the ways we can, given our own assessment of risk) and institutionally. Rather than capitulating, universities must defend critical pedagogies and the pedagogical expertise of professors. As the AAUP statement closes with, “now is not the time to be complacent. Now is the time to act.”

Jenna Queenan is a PhD candidate in Urban Education and a Teaching and Learning Center Fellow.

References

American Association of University Professors. (2025) “Against Anticipatory Obedience.” Accessed on February 17, 2026. https://www.aaup.org/reports-publications/aaup-policies-reports/policy-statements/against-anticipatory-obedience

Anyon, J. (2005). Radical possibilities: Public policy, urban education, and a new social movement. New York, NY: Routledge.

Estrine, B. (2025, July 10). CUNY suspends student activist leader, fires four faculty members in escalation of repression against Palestine activism. Mondoweiss. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/07/cuny-suspends-student-activist-leader-fires-four-faculty-members-in-escalation-of-repression-against-palestine-activism/

Berliner, D. (2013). Effects of inequality and poverty vs. teachers and schooling on America’s youth. Teachers College Record, 115, 1-26.

Bishop, E. & Fine, M. “Dialogue 1: Resist anticipatory obedience.” https://counternarrate.commons.gc.cuny.edu/dialogue-1-resist-anticipatory-obedience/

Featherstone, L. (2025, July 28). Zionist McCarthyism comes for CUNY. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2025/07/zionism-mccarthyism-cuny-palestine-authoritarianism

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Herder and Herder.

Hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress. New York, NY: Routledge.

Lorde, A. (2017). Your silence will not protect you. Silver Press.

Mansoor, S. (2025, July 15). Four CUNY professors say they were fired for supporting Palestine. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2025/07/15/cuny-professors-fired-palestine/

Paris, D. &  Alim, H. S. (Eds.). (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Reed, C. T. (2023). New York Liberation School: Student and Movement for the People’s University. Common Notions.

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