| With the advent of American
universities in the latter half of the eighteenth-century came also
the impending debate of academic freedom in those universities.
Academic Freedom is a time-honored tradition and vanguard of the
University in the United States. It has been the center of discussion
in the ever-changing environment of teaching and learning. We will
examine Academic Freedom through its particular tenets as stated
by the American Association of University Professors, parallel First
Amendment arguments, curricular discussions, its self-defining limitations,
recent technology issues and Academic Freedom specifically at UCLA.
It wasn’t until 1940 that the American Association of University
Professors (AAUP) officially drafted a “Statement
of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.” In this
Statement, the AAUP outlined the purpose and conditions of Academic
Freedom and Tenure, through the dual duties
of professors of research and teaching:
The common good depends upon the free search
for truth and its free exposition. Academic freedom is essential
to these purposes and applies to both teaching and research. Freedom
in research is fundamental to the advancement of truth. Academic
freedom in its teaching aspect is fundamental for the protection
of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of the student to
freedom in learning. It carries with it duties correlative with
rights…Freedom and economic security, hence, tenure, are
indispensable to the success of an institution in fulfilling its
obligations to its students and to society.
In the AAUP’s Statement, the pursuit
of truth is the mainstay behind Academic Freedom. Tenure
is granted to professors in order to ensure that they will be able
to voice their ideas without having to fear for their jobs. The
design behind allowing professors to teach an unlimited range of
ideas is that somewhere amidst all the ideas, one will find the
truth.
This principle is also applied to the First Amendment argument for
freedom of speech. In her online article, “The
Interdependency of Fair Use and the First Amendment,”
TyAnna K. Herrington of the Georgia Institute of Technology incorporates
Arlene Bielefield and Lawrence Cheeseman’s Technology and
copyright into her defense of the First Amendment when she said,
“ ‘Truth is more likely to be gathered out of a multitude
of tongues than through any kind of authoritative pronouncement…It
is for this reason that debate on public issues should be uninhibited,
robust, and wide open, and may well include vehement, caustic, and
sometimes unpleasant attacks’ (Bielefield & Cheeseman,
52).” Therefore, applying the argument of finding truth amidst
a whole host of ideas to academic freedom, it is clear why universities
allow professors the right to speak their minds, and guarantee it
through tenure. Among all the discussions and curriculums, truth
lays awaiting students to discover it in their own interpretations
of the professors’ lectures.
Bielefield and Cheeseman also pose that debates
over the freedom of speech are beneficial to the pursuit of truth.
Likewise, academic freedom allows for Curricular
Debates to occur in universities, where professors can present
and defend their positions through their proposed curriculums. On
August 12, 2002, Robert Post was asked by University of California
President Richard Atkinson to examine the academic freedom issues
concerning a course entitled “The Politics and Poetics of
Palestinian Resistance.” Post’s
letter to Atkinson describes the incident at University of California,
Berkeley where a graduate student was asked to change the course
description and ultimately the curriculum of his writing course.
In the AAUP’s bimonthly magazine Academe, a explanation of
the curriculum is sited in preface to Post’s letter: “The
course description explained, in provocative terms, the context
of the Palestinian Intifada and its relationship to Palestinian
writing; it closed with the warning that ‘conservative thinkers
are encouraged to seek other sections.’” Debates sprung
up on CNN’s Hardball as well as in editorials published in
the Wall Street Journal. Post’s letter concluded that the
graduate student had the right to express his views through the
curriculum guaranteed by academic freedom, but that he violated
the academic freedom of students in condemning “conservative
thinkers”:
[The University of California] guarantees
that students will not suffer merely because their political perspectives
happen to differ from those of their instructor. If a faculty
member harshly expresses very strong political views, however,
students may doubt this guarantee. There is thus tension between
the necessary freedom of faculty to express their political perspectives,
and the essential freedom of students to express differing views.
Skillful faculty members can sometimes defuse this tension by
acknowledging their own political commitments in the classroom…Unfortunately,
the course description of ‘The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian
Resistance’ displays no such pedagogical subtlety.
Post writes that academic freedom is a highly
sought premium in the University, but it must be in balance with
a student’s right to express his or her own ideas as well.
The course description ventured out of the realm of academic freedom
when it discouraged students with differing ideologies; specifically
“conservative thinkers.” Through the First Amendment
debates and discussions, as well as applying its ideas and arguments,
we can better understand the purpose behind Academic Freedom.
Academic Freedom as we know it today is the
right given to professors and students to discuss at any length
any topic that is relevant to the course. It is a right that is
lauded by universities as inherent and necessary for the encouragement
of free learning and teaching. Academic Freedom allows for controversial
courses as well as for topics that would not normally be presented.
But all this freedom has its ironical limits. In the AAUP’s
Statement, Academic Freedom is defined as all encompassing, but
then its limits are set [italicizes added to show limits]:
ACADEMIC FREEDOM
a. Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the
publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance
of their other academic duties; but research for pecuniary return
should be based upon an understanding with…the institution.
b. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing
their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into
their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their
subject…
c. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a
learned profession, and officers of an educational institution.
When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from
institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position
in the community imposes special obligations…they should
remember that the public may judge their profession and their
institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times
be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show
respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort
to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.
Academic Freedom is not absolute freedom. As
the AAUP outlines the freedoms of professors and academia, it also
follows each freedom with a limit. The Statement asserts that research
done for financial gain must be discussed and agreed upon with the
university’s Administration,
limiting the freedom of research slightly. It also states that controversial
topics should not be discussed if those topics do not pertain to
the course’s agreed-upon curriculum, narrowing the scope of
freedom increasingly more. Finally, their positions as professors
and researchers come with a responsibility to the university and
community, emphasizing that they should represent the university
in the best interests of the university; a reminder that professors
should not bite the hand that feeds them, nor dishonor it in any
way. This last limit was tested in the 2003 dismissal of University
of South Florida’s Dr. Sami Al-Arian, who was alleged with
using his position in the university to promote terrorism. The report
stated that Dr. Al-Arian failed to adhere to the AAUP’s “Statement
of Professional Ethics,” that “when [professors]
speak or act as private persons they avoid creating the impression
of speaking or acting for their college or university.’”
Though Dr. Al-Arian had the right to act as a private person, his
academic freedom obliges him to distinguish when he is speaking
or acting for the University and when he is speaking or acting for
himself. Academic Freedom praises free thought and diversity of
ideas, but the university’s wish to not offend those that
support it in the community force professors to be careful about
what they say or do; again Freedom with restraint. The limits of
academic freedom stem from society’s wish to appease all groups
and persons, in an effort to satisfy the Political
Correctness of the current era. Even though Universities are
supposed to be bastions of free thought and open forums of discussions,
as noted above in the UC Berkeley course-description fiasco, there
is always the safeguarding that occurs to ensure that there are
some controls and limits to freedom.
Academic Freedom recently made headlines again
in an AAUP report published in 1999 on technology and its uses in
higher education. The report was drafted to address the academic
freedom and privacy issues that result from using the new technology
of Internet and email. The Academic Senate for California Community
Colleges published their position paper on “Academic Freedom,
Privacy, Copyright and Fair Use in a Technological World,”
citing the AAUP’s report:
One overriding principle should govern such inquiry: Freedom of
expression and academic freedom should be limited to no greater
degree in electronic format than in printed or oral communication,
unless and to the degree that unique conditions of the new media
warrant different treatment… this principle of freedom must
include several parts:
• Freedom of research, including access
to information in electronic format.
• Freedom of publication, including the ability to post
controversial material.
• Freedom of teaching, including the extended classroom
produced by distance education. [American Association of University
Professors,
"Academic Freedom and Electronic Communications",
Washington, D.C., June 1997.]
Technology presents another realm in which
Academic Freedom must be redefined. The Senate cites the various
electronic formats that must be addressed as well as the new teaching
style of Distance Education, which is
made available because of courses offered over the Internet as well
as online discussion groups within a classroom. By examining technology,
the Senate and AAUP were able to again bring Academic Freedom questions
to light.
Here at the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), Academic Freedom has been held paramount throughout its
history as a university. Last year, in May 2003, UCLA faculty voted
to ratify a new Statement of Academic Freedom, first drafted in
1934. The
UCLA Statement’s introduction follows, echoing the sediments
of the above statements and reports:
The University of California is committed
to upholding and preserving principles of academic freedom. These
principles guarantee freedom of inquiry and research, freedom
of teaching, and freedom of expression and publication. These
principles reflect the University’s fundamental mission
of discovering knowledge and of disseminating knowledge to its
students and to society at large. Knowledge cannot be advanced
unless there is freedom of exploration and investigation. It cannot
be transmitted to our students and to the public unless there
is freedom of expression and publication, both inside and beyond
the classroom. The University also seeks to instill in its students
a mature independence of mind, and this purpose cannot be achieved
unless students and teachers are free within the classroom to
express the widest range of viewpoints within the norms of scholarly
inquiry and professional ethics.
UCLA has had a variety of Academic Freedom debates
and discussions over the recent decade, primarily over electronic
policy of the Internet and email. Also in recent discussion have
been anti-and pro-war positions, the Middle East, Palestinian and
Israeli relations and many more. It is important to note that UCLA
is only one of thousands of universities that hold Academic Freedom
as its foundation for teaching and learning. Academic Freedom will
forever be the basis for teaching and learning in the University,
but discussions will continue over its scope, limits and definition
as the University environment ebbs and flows.
Related Links
American Association of University Professors Academic Freedom &
Tenure Page
(http://www.aaup.org/Com-a/index.htm)
American Association of University Professors Report from East Texas
Baptist University
(http://www.aaup.org/Com-a/Institutions/archives/2003/ETXBap.htm#back1)
University of California, Santa Cruz Committee on Academic Freedom:
2002-03 Annual Report
(http://senate.ucsc.edu/caf/CAFar.1391.pdf)
Noindoctrincation.org: Nonprofit organization Promoting Open Inquiry
in Academia
(http://www.noindoctrination.org/acadf.shtml)
February 2002: University of Pittsburgh Letter from the Provost
(http://www.pitt.edu/~provost/afmemo.html) |