Neal Hutchens, J.D., Ph.D.
Department Chair, Professor
Neal Hutchens is a faculty member in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation. His research focuses on the intersections of higher education law, policy, and practice, with much of his scholarship centered on issues of free speech and academic freedom in higher education. An important line of recent scholarly inquiry in the academic freedom context has focused on legislative efforts at the state level to ban the teaching of concepts associated with critical race theory (CRT), including at public colleges and universities.
In 2015, Hutchens received the William A. Kaplin Award from the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University. The award is intended to recognize nationally leading scholars whose work embraces intersections of law and policy in higher education. Hutchens is on the author team of the most recent edition of The Law of Higher Education, a leading treatise that is also published in a student version. He has co-authored books on campus speech and shared governance. For the 2022/23 academic year, Hutchens served as a fellow at the University of California's National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.
Along with academic writing, Hutchens has written for publications that include The Conversation, The Hechinger Report, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed., and Diverse Issues in Higher Education.
Research Interests: Higher Education, Higher Education Law