Academic Freedom and the Need for Geographers as Public Intellectuals
Free speech and academic freedom are increasingly under siege in the United States, with the scope and scale of speech repression nearly unprecedented. At the same time, the U.S. government is currently engaged in a vast array of domestic and foreign policy shifts, from changes in environmental regulations and naming conventions at home, to the closing of USAID operations and retreat from multilateralism abroad. Despite efforts to silence critics, these policy and program shifts deserve thoughtful public conversations that involve geographers. We need geographers as public intellectuals to continue to voice their perspective on the policies and programs of our government and others.
The tradition of the public intellectual (a form of public geography) may be contrasted with that of the ivory tower academic. Public intellectuals are scholars who take the time to address an important public debate or policy issue when they have relevant expertise and an informed perspective to offer. The public intellectual practice is more well developed in Europe, where academics regularly participate in policy discussions and are considered normal actors in public discourse. In fact, many European universities expect their faculty to comment on public issues and acknowledge this is in tenure and promotion criteria. In contrast, this practice is less well developed in the United States, with such engagement sometimes viewed as inappropriate. This distance between the American academy and public policy discussions has contributed to the ivory tower phenomenon, arguably making it more challenging for the U.S. public to feel connected to universities, their faculty and students.
To the extent that academics do participate in public policy discussions in the U.S., some disciplines tend to be over-represented, most notably economics and political science. That said, analysis that a student and I undertook over a decade ago showed that for a small discipline, geography was punching above its weight, outpacing allied disciplines such as anthropology, geology, and biology in terms of op-ed productivity per member. The geographic perspective is critical for adding to public policy discussions, be it in terms of nuance regarding spatial patterns, scale, coupled-human-environment systems or deep regional knowledge. As former AAG president Alec Murphy has argued: “our understanding of issues and problems will be impoverished if geographical perspectives are not part of the mix.”
The AAG considers the support of free speech and academic freedom to be core to its mission and has offered programming to this end. For example, in 2023, the AAG initiated the Elevate the Discipline cohort of 15 geographers to receive year-long support and training in techniques for public scholarship to inform public policy. In late October of this year, the AAG hosted a panel for department and program chairs seeking to support their faculty in terms of academic freedom. Furthermore, I am happy to report that we still have many geographers who continue to offer their perspectives on the issues of the day. Herewith three examples.
In early October, Christopher F. Meindl, associate professor of geography at the University of South Florida, published a commentary entitled “Florida’s 1,100 natural springs are under threat — a geographer explains how to restore them.” In this piece, Meindl drew on his own research as a human-environment geographer, and recent book on Florida springs, to provide context and recommendations for restoring these important natural assets.
Second, while we often think of public scholarship appearing in the form of commentaries, some geographers also write books that are more accessible to a public audience. A good example of this is Yolonda Youngs’ recent book, Framing Nature, about the social construction of nature in Grand Canyon National Park. Hearing Youngs present on her book at the recent meeting of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, I appreciated how she explained deliberately writing the book for a public audience, even tearing up portions of a previous draft and re-writing it in a way that would be more accessible.
Lastly, geographer and cartographer Margaret Wickens Pearce was recently recognized as a MacArthur Foundation Fellow (aka genius award) for her groundbreaking work “creating maps that foreground Indigenous Peoples’ understanding of land and place.” Her approach highlights another form of public scholarship, working respectfully with communities to bring their perspectives into conversation with broader publics. As a Potawatomi Nation tribal member, Pearce was well positioned to undertake this work.
Today, we need the geographer as public intellectual more than ever. Engaging in this manner requires a certain amount of backbone and privilege, the ability to write for broader publics, and good timing.
Writing for a general audience has always required some willingness to endure negative feedback. Now we have an added layer of hostility and professional risk to anything perceived as critical. In mid-September, the U.S. president argued that television coverage that is critical of him or his administration’s policies is illegal (a point that was unsubstantiated and challenged). Several academics, including geographers, have also lost their jobs or been put on administrative leave for comments they made on social media following Charlie Kirk’s murder. While the climate of fear these comments and actions have engendered is palpable, and some members of our community are in more precarious positions than others, now is not the time for those in privileged positions to be silent.
The unfortunate reality is that tenured and U.S.-born professors in blue states are often in less precarious positions than others. As such, at this time I would especially encourage those with privilege to contribute as public intellectuals where appropriate. When writing, it is always important to stick to positions and perspectives that are informed by one’s scholarship. Doing so makes one’s arguments more defensible.
Writing for broader publics is also quite different than writing for academic audiences. While we generally learn to write for academic audiences as graduate students, most of us are not taught to write for non-specialists. Writing for a general audience is a skill that needs to be developed. As mentioned previously, the AAG’s “Elevate the Discipline” program offered media and advocacy training to a group of geographers working on climate change and society. Some departments and faculty members have also been more proactive than others in mentoring and collaborating with students in this approach to writing. For example, former AAG president Derek Alderman, as well as Jordan Brasher, worked alongside Ph.D. candidate Seth Kannar, who was first author on a 2025 commentary for The Conversation entitled “From Greenland to Fort Bragg, America is caught in a name game where place names become political tools.” This was no doubt a valuable experience for an early career geographer, showing that it is possible to make connections between our research and current policy discussions.
Lastly, unlike most academic articles, the timing of many (but not all) commentaries is critical so they dovetail with the news cycle. This is challenging for many academics, as it means dropping what you are doing and writing something quickly so that it is relevant to a burning, public debate. Reporters may also call for background information or perspective on an issue, and one needs to set aside their current work to think through a thoughtful response. Even more challenging are live media interviews on radio or television. A good example of this is former AAG president Glen MacDonald who was interviewed widely by major news outlets, including on the nightly news in 2018 in L.A. about the Camp Fire ravaging the state at that time. This is hard but important work, and geographers almost always add critical depth and perspective to the conversation.
While academic freedom is under siege in the United States today, we now need geographers as public intellectuals more than ever. Fear is a powerful weapon and those in less precarious positions need to push back in support of a robust civil society and the power of the fourth and fifth estates. In so doing, geographers bring valuable perspectives to the debate, bridge the gap between academia and the public, and demonstrate the vitality and relevance of our discipline.
Please note: The ideas expressed in the AAG President’s column are not necessarily the views of the AAG as a whole. This column is traditionally a space in which the president may talk about their views or focus during their tenure as president of AAG, or spotlight their areas of professional work. Please feel free to email the president directly at [email protected] to enable a constructive discussion.
This is the sixth of a short series of perspectives by 2024-2026 Council Treasurer Antoinette WinklerPrins — a series designed to help illuminate some of the financial challenges a professional organization such as the AAG faces. In this column, she offers perspectives on the financial aspects of running the AAG Annual Meeting. 
