Professional Association Liberty Act

Introduction

Radical activists use a host of interlocking components of civil society to restrict academic freedom. Their control of professional associations particularly harms professors. When disciplinary professional organizations such as the American Anthropological Association or the American Bar Association require members to endorse commitments to ideologies such as “diversity, equity, or inclusion” or so-called “anti-racism,” on pain of being barred from professionals services such as conferences or job fairs, they abrogate academic freedom. The use of professional associations is particularly insidious, because a private cabal effectively erodes Americans’ general freedom.

Americans possess means to hold illiberal professional associations accountable. We already have drafted the Licensure Nondiscrimination Act, which prevents radicalized professional associations from imposing discriminatory licensure requirements. Here, in the model Professional Association Liberty Act, we propose prohibiting all state funding or support for any professional association that requires commitments to discriminatory concepts, imposes censorship, or requires abridgement of First Amendment rights. Prohibited funding includes membership expenses, travel expenses, professional development, grants, use of public facilities, or support for any program or activity sponsored by a discriminatory professional association.

We provide careful exceptions: the law doesn’t apply to funding needed to enforce state law, allow for litigation, or meet existing contractual obligations. The law makes the state Attorney General responsible for listing professional associations that have violated the law and makes every component of the public university system from Boards of Regents to individual departments responsible for complying with the law.

We used California Assembly Bill 1887 (2015-2016) as our model for the mechanism of this law. That law banned state-funded and sponsored travel to states that California believed had laws that discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. Since that law passed constitutional muster, we believe this model bill does as well.

The model Professional Association Liberty Act ensures that taxpayer money and public institutions will not be used to support discriminatory professional associations.

Model Legislative Text

The Legislature finds and declares that it is the policy of the State of {Name} to promote liberty and to combat discrimination.
The {Board of Regents} of the {State} public university system, each institution of higher education that receives state funding, and each school, office, and department within each institution of higher education that receives state funding, may not fund, facilitate, or provide any support to any organization, including professional associations, which:
1. Endorses, affirms, requires staff, requires members, or requires participants in programs or events to endorse, affirm, or use any of the following concepts:
  1. one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex;
  2. an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously;
  3. an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of the individual’s race;
  4. members of one race cannot or should not attempt to treat others without respect to race;
  5. an individual’s moral standing or worth is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex;
  6. an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex;
  7. an individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex;
  8. meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular race to oppress members of another race; or
  9. fault, blame, or bias should be assigned to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex;
2. Endorses, affirms, requires staff, requires members, or requires participants in programs or events to endorse, affirm, or use “preferred pronouns” or any belief or practice that requires disavowal of the biological nature of sex;
3. Endorses, affirms, requires staff, requires members, or requires participants in programs or events to endorse, affirm, or use “land acknowledgments”;
4. Endorses, affirms, requires staff, requires members, or requires participants in programs or events to abridge the rights of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or freedom of association of themselves or of any other person;
5. Endorses, affirms, requires staff, requires members, or requires participants in programs or events to censor words, images, research materials, publications, or any other professional material whose free use is guaranteed by the contractual rights of academic freedom possessed by employees of the {State} public university system or by the academic freedom rights established by state and federal law or constitutional right; or
6. Requires vaccination or information on vaccine status as a condition of attending conferences and other events;
Examples of funding, facilitation, and support prohibited by Subsection 2 include:
1. Reimbursement of membership expenses in prohibited organizations, including professional associations;
2. Reimbursement of travel expenses to conferences, programs, and all other events sponsored by prohibited organizations, including professional associations;
3. Trainings, licensure requirements, and any other professional development;
4. Grants, use of public facilities, use of time by public employees, or any other support for prohibited organizations, including professional associations; and
5. Support for any program, fellowship, event, journal, or any other activity sponsored or hosted by prohibited organizations, including professional associations.
Subsection 2 shall not apply to funding that is required for any of the following purposes:
1. Enforcement of {State} law, including auditing and revenue collection;
2. Litigation; and
3. To meet contractual obligations incurred before January 1, 20XX.
The Attorney General shall develop, maintain, and post on his or her Internet Web site a current list of organizations, including professional associations, that, after January 1, 20XX, have policies which violate the prohibitions of Subsection 2.
It shall be the responsibility of the {Board of Regents} of the {State} public university system, each institution of higher education that receives state funding, and each school, office, and department within each institution of higher education that receives state funding to consult the list on the Internet Web site of the Attorney General in order to comply with the funding restrictions imposed by this chapter.
If any provision of this chapter, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this chapter and the application of its provisions to any other person or circumstance shall not be affected thereby.

The National Association of Scholars, in consultation with other supporters and friends of the Civics Alliance, drafted these model bills to translate into legislative language the principles in the Civics Alliance’s Civics Curriculum Statement & Open Letter. Just as these bills have been drafted with the expectation that different states will modify them as they see fit, they also have been drafted with the expectation that not every supporter of the Civics Alliance will endorse these bills or every part of them. Individual Civics Alliance signatories and supporters should not be assumed to have endorsed these bills, unless they say so explicitly.