Amy Reid, PEN America’s Freedom to Learn Interim Program Director, was named an “Honorary Alumna” by the New College Alumni Association, which represents about 6,000 graduates of the Florida honors college where she worked for 30 years.
The unanimous vote by the association’s Board of Directors to grant the honorific came after Reid was denied “Professor Emerita” status at New College of Florida by recently appointed President Richard Corcoran, despite supportive recommendations from the college provost and faculty peers.
“I was honored when my colleagues nominated me for emerita status and when the New College Alumni Association adopted me as one of their own, in recognition of my long-teaching career and my vocal advocacy for the College,” Reid said. “I’m proud now to work alongside my PEN America colleagues to promote free expression and academic freedom in these most troubling times. Honor and respect.”
Reid’s service at the public Sarasota institution spanned 30 years. She was a professor of French and worked with colleagues to found the Gender Studies Program, serving as its first and, later, final director. The highly regarded interdisciplinary program was disbanded in 2023 after Gov. Ron DeSantis targeted the small liberal arts school by placing six hand-picked conservative allies on its 13-member Board of Trustees. In 2023-24, Reid served as Chair of the Faculty and, ex officio, as the faculty representative on the Board of Trustees.
In denying Reid emeritus status, which is largely honorary, Corcoran pointed to her service on the board. As a member of the board, Reid’s was one of two votes against naming Corcoran as the school’s permanent president.
“When I became president with a mandate for change from the Board of Trustees, there was need for reasoned and respectful exchange between the faculty and administration. Regrettably, Professor Reid was one of the leading voices of hyperbolic alarmism and needless obstruction,” Corcoran wrote in an email, according to the news site Florida Politics. “In her letter of resignation, Professor Reid wrote that ‘the New College where I once taught no longer exists.’ She need not be burdened by further association with it.”
Reid joined PEN America in November 2024. In an interview with Ms. Magazine, which named her one of its top feminists of 2024, Reid called what’s happening at New College “a cautionary tale.” Nearly half of the school’s faculty departed after the Republican takeover. This week, the school was the first to announce it was ready to sign on to a “compact” offered by the Trump administration, where higher education institutions can agree to a set of demands related to admissions, tuition, and a range of other policies, in exchange for the prospect of preferential access to federal funds. The “compact,” which has been characterized as coercive, and a form of extortion, has been formally rejected to date by seven other institutions, who have raised concerns about its negative implications for free expression, academic freedom, and the political independence of their institutionsReid holds a PhD in French from Yale University and is an award-winning translator, specializing in Francophone African fiction. Her translation of Marie-Célie Agnant’s novel Rosa the Alligator, an exploration of the limits of truth, reconciliation, and justice for Haiti, was recently released.
“Amy is an inspiring colleague, and her commitment to justice and resolute spirit is courageous,” said Jonathan Friedman, PEN America’s Sy Syms managing director of U.S. Free Expression Programs. “It’s an honor to have her on our team at PEN America, taking forward the fight for academic freedom and the freedom to learn on our campuses.”
