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This handbook provides university teachers tools with which to manage teaching and research confrontations that limit the range of academic discourse. It seeks to provide concrete suggestions both to respond to such attacks and to help avoid them in the first place. Unlike productive scholarly debates, these attacks often exploit polarizing labels, employ the strategies of blacklists, and use illegitimate or illegal means of gathering evidence. This handbook also addresses prickly pedagogical situations in which students may be engaged in larger campaigns against faculty, or may be participating in class in a way that disrupts academic discussion.

The handbook is based on research undertaken by the Taskforce on Middle East Anthropology to understand available institutional resources, as well as on ethnographic interviews conducted with academics who have encountered obstacles in their teaching and scholarship. These interviews provide concrete evidence of the nature of the attacks, the potentials and limitations of resources, and advice on how to access these resources. Among the institutional resources considered here are: internal university structures, professional organizations, legal recourse, and media outlets. Also provided are pedagogical tools for dealing with difficulties in the classroom, and a useful bibliography of recent writings on academic freedom.