Celebrate the power of education, preserve academic freedom, and reject threats to both

On January 16, at the 48th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast in Springfield, I learned about Free Frank McWorter. He was an enslaved man who had been given responsibility for business transactions by his owner, and thus learned to read and to perform mathematical operations. An astute businessman, McWorter purchased freedom from enslavement for his wife, his oldest son and himself. In 1836, the free family migrated to the Illinois frontier, where McWorter founded the city of New Philadelphia in Pike County. He became the first African-American to found a municipality and establish a planned community. The power of education gave him the foundation to be a freedom fighter against the tyranny of enslavement.

Two weeks ago, SIU Medicine held the 8th Annual Dr. Alonzo Kenniebrew Lecture, Conference and Forum. This event honors the work of Dr. Kenniebrew, a surgeon who was educated at the Tuskegee Institute, and who, in 1909 was the first African-American to establish a surgical hospital, the New Home Sanitarium, in Jacksonville, Illinois. That occurred after he was unable to secure hospital privileges at existing hospitals. The power of education gave him the foundation to be a freedom fighter against the tyranny of bureaucratic racism.

Last Sunday, I attended the Springfield Branch NAACP 102nd Annual Lincoln-Douglass Banquet. One of the namesakes for this banquet, Frederick Douglass, was an enslaved man, who, at age 8 and against the laws of Maryland, was given a few reading lessons by his caretaker. This meager education was the springboard for Douglass and for his work as an abolitionist, eloquent orator, publisher and author. The power of education was the foundation for him to be a freedom fighter to shape the history of the United States.

The keynote speaker at the NAACP banquet was civil rights attorney Ben Crump, whose career has focused on issues of racial injustice in cases involving George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Ahmaud Arbery, and on people who suffered the effects of toxic exposure, such as those affected by the Flint water crisis and those suffering from cancers caused by exposure to certain types of talc.

More:Crump at NAACP banquet: 'I refuse to let Gov. DeSantis exterminate Black history'

Many of Mr. Crump’s words of inspiration centered on the power of education. He quoted several others, including Medgar Evers (“You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea”), and Booker T. Washington (“If we educate the masses, we uplift the race”). Mr. Crump noted that education was the key to ending enslavement, and also the key to overcoming the “enemies of equity” that followed enslavement, such as carpetbaggers, polecats, Jim Crow and laws of segregation and voter suppression, and those whose current aim is to dismantle good education.

SIU School of Medicine stands beside Mr. Crump. We celebrate academic freedom and innovation in education, and we know the power that creative and unrestricted medical education for all people has on excellence and equity in health care for vast populations.

But now, that academic freedom, the essence of effective education, is under an intensifying attack. In Florida, there is an active attempt to gut academic freedom at all levels of public education. Mr. Crump noted that the activities in Florida attempt to eliminate elements of African-American history from the curricula. He stated, “the reason we must teach Black history in all of the classrooms is because it’s not just for the Black students, but it’s for the white students and the brown students and the red students.” Yes, indeed.

The attack on academic inquiry in Florida goes beyond Black studies. This attack includes all of the following: 1) an attempt to eliminate advanced placement (AP) African-American Studies courses in high school classrooms, 2) an all-out focused attack on curricular freedom at an innovative state liberal arts institution (the New College of Florida), and 3) an attempt to eliminate all funding for equity, diversity and inclusion activities in public education. In essence, it is an attack on education related to all students from underrepresented and marginalized groups.

If successful, this attack likely will be the first of many attacks to impose forced indoctrination on the citizens. SIU School of Medicine will stand with other institutions of higher learning to preserve the academic freedom that has made American higher education historically the best in the world.

Jerry Kruse, MD, MSPH, is dean and provost, SIU School of Medicine and chief executive officer at SIU Medicine.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Florida attempts to gut academic freedom at all levels of education