This past week, a chair from another department on campus where I work took it upon herself to contact the chair of my department and make a formal inquiry into the suitability of my academic right to assign the book The Real Anthony Fauci by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to my upper-division college course titled Children in Families and Communities. This was the second formal inquiry I have received for assigning a book to this class in the past two years. The first came after I assigned Plague of Corruption, by Dr. Judy Mikovitz, spring semester 2021.*

Why the sudden interest in the books I assign to my class? This was new. Since the fall of 2001 when I was hired, no one has ever expressed any interest in what material I assigned to my classes. Every semester, like all other faculty on campus, I submit my course syllabi pro forma. The CSU hired me, based on my academic background and teaching experience at other institutions, to teach what I thought was important. I had proven myself during the competitive hiring process in 2001. And, for the next 20 years.