Academic Freedom: Constitutional Myths and Practical Realities

Academic freedom is a German import. Throughout the 19th century, more and more American scholars undertook advanced study in Germany and returned to the United States committed to wissenschaft (systematic research), a commitment that in their view required lehrfreiheit (faculty’s freedom to teach) and lernfreiheit (students’ freedom to learn). Institutional resistance to these ideas resulted in highly publicized instances of faculty being fired, but although academic freedom did not acquire force of law, competition for notable scholars, the need for expertise in an increasingly complex society, and other factors helped to get faculty demands incorporated into university governance. The landmark event in academic freedom’s early years was the founding of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in 1915. Their “Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure” insisted that university faculty are “appointees,” like judges, with “professional functions to perform in which the appointing authorities have neither competency nor moral right to intervene.” Since then, the definition of academic freedom has evolved to include specific protection of research, teaching, and, most controversial and problematic, extramural speech. It has also expanded to include more and more institutions, with backing from prominent professional organizations—the 1940 “Statement of Principles” (which updated the 1915 “Declaration”) along with the 1970 “Interpretive Comments” has been endorsed by literally hundreds of academic groups. These supportive developments periodically met resistance from business, government, and populist elements, which argued that academic freedom shielded economic inefficiency or political radicalism. The First Red Scare (during and after World War I) and the Second Red Scare, featuring McCarthyism (after World War II), are just two eras during which academic freedom was under serious attack. Today, postmodern theory calls “objective truth” into question, leading some academics themselves to doubt the usefulness or even the possibility of academic freedom. This bibliography is an introductory guide to past and present arguments for and conflicts about academic freedom. Many works mentioned here define “academic freedom” broadly and include free speech and other rights often linked to the narrower definition of academic freedom that pertains to faculty research, teaching, and extramural speech. Entries indicate which aspects of academic freedom are dealt with in each work. This bibliography builds on the work of previous bibliographers and includes the most important items they mention, but most references here have been published (either in print or online) since the earlier bibliographies appeared.

Most professors and administrators are aware that academic freedom is in danger of being brushed aside by a public that has little understanding of what is at stake. They may be only marginally aware that the defense of academic freedom is endangered by certain confusions concerning the nature of academic freedom, the criteria for its violation, and the structure of an adequate justification for claims to it. These confusions were enshrined in some of the central documents on the subject, including the 1940 Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure, agreed upon by the American Association of University Professors and the Association of American Colleges and endorsed by many professional organizations. Careful analysis of them will not do away with debate; it will bring the debate into focus, so that attacks on academic freedom can be appraised as near or far away from the center of the target and can then be appropriately answered. Nearly all the contemporary writing on academic freedom consists of attack or defense. The Concept of Academic Freedom is the first book to deal exclusively with fundamental conceptual issues underlying the battle. In the discussion of these issues, certain philosophical positions crystallize: radical versus liberal conceptions of the status and function of university teachers, specific versus general theories of academic freedom, consequential versus nonconsequential theories of justification. Partisans (and enemies) of academic freedom would do well to decide on which side of these divisions they stand, or how they would mediate between sides. Otherwise many questions will remain unclear: What is under discussion-a special right peculiar to academics or a general right that is especially important to academics? Is justification of that right possible? Can the right be derived from other rights, or from the theory of justice or of democratic society? Or is the argument for academic freedom one that more properly turns on the consequences for society as a whole if that freedom is not protected? The essays in this book explore these and other problems concerning the defense of academic freedom by radicals, the justification for disruption on campus, and the control of research. Contributors to the volume include Hugo Adam Bedau, Bertram H. Davis, Milton Fisk, Graham Hughes, Alan Pasch, Hardy E. Jones, Alexander Ritchie, Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, Rolf Sartorius, T. M. Scanlon, Richard Schmitt, John R. Searle, Judith Jarvis Thomson, and William Van Alstyne. All are outstanding in their fields. Many have had practical experience in the legal profession or with the American Association of University Professors on the issue of academic freedom.

The 1925 Conference Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure was an important step toward larger understandings and procedural protections. It demonstrated a growing awareness of the need for academic freedom in some circles, though not the full range of protections that the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) sought. Moreover, the battles over evolution that occurred throughout the 1920s demonstrated the persistent pressures and limitations. So, too, did institutionally based challenges to and infringements of academic freedom and tenure. Despite seeming progress, the AAUP found itself continually bombarded with claims of violations in the late 1920s and early 1930s, eventually forcing the association to reconsider its approaches to both handling initial complaints and acting once a violation had been found. Pressed by faculty who found the organization to be too conservative, the AAUP began what would later be known as censuring institutions, though the shift caused confusion both inside and outside the organization. Elsewhere, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) reemerged after almost a decade of setbacks and tried to stake its own claims for academic freedom, though at first with limited success. And, despite its attention-garnering antiantievolution efforts, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), too, recognized the need for changes in its approach, which it reformulated and reconceived in the early 1930s.

with academic obligation. The activities of the committee on academic freedom and tenure made up most of the agenda of activities of the Association; the committee on academic obligations had never once met, according to Dewey's recollection. The American Association of University Professors was a product of the situation in which some of the leading university teachers in the country thought that, because the academic profession was entitled to respect as a calling, they were entitled to academic freedom. Even in the second decade of the twentieth century, powerful persons outside the universities, and within the universities trustees, presidents, and deans, or heads of departments still regarded their academic staffs as hired hands to be appointed and dismissed at will. Such persons were regarded as the enemies of academic freedom. Although there are still some rough-handed presidents and deans in back-country colleges and state universities, on the whole these traditional enemies of academic freedom are seldom any longer to be seen. In the minds of the American academics who were active in the early years of the Association, academic freedom and permanence of tenure were indissolubly associated with each other. At that time, it was said that the latter was needed to guarantee the former. Academic freedom was declared to be an assurance that new ideas would be discovered, that sound old ideas would be appreciated in a more critical way, and that unsound ones would be discarded. The argument for academic freedom was roughly the argument for liberty in general put forth by John Stuart Mill in On Liberty. It was also

In 1969, Armstrong State College suspended Professor W. Haynes Dyches after he was arrested in his classroom for allegedly sharing The Great Speckled Bird, an underground newspaper out of Atlanta, with young men in Savannah, Georgia. The criminal charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor was eventually dropped after courts ruled that The Great Speckled Bird did not constitute obscene material. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) alleged that Armstrong had violated the professor’s academic freedom by neglecting due process. The AAUP’s investigation revealed that Professor Dyches was fired because he was a member of Students for a Democratic Society and he was believed to have invited young men to his apartment. The AAUP added Armstrong to the organization’s censure list in 1972. The censure lasted a little over 10 years as Armstrong State College’s president, Harry Ashmore, refused to meet the AAUP’s conditions. Based on archival research in the Armstrong archives, the AAUP collections at George Washington University, local and student newspapers, and oral history interviews with Armstrong students and faculty, this case study illuminates the ways in which communities used Cold War moral panics about communists, gays, and lesbians to limit academic freedom and achieve political conformity in public higher education in the South during the “long Sixties.”

Itzhak Galnoor Academic Freedom under Political Duress: Israel POLITICAL DURESS WITHIN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY IS A STRONG sense that there is a threat of external interference with core academic values and freedoms such as free inquiry, free speech, institutional autonomy, and personal safety. Of course, a “strong sense” is subjective and not easily measurable and a certain degree of duress is probably part and parcel of academic life. Political duress in academia, however, is somewhat more focused because it relates to intended attempts to curtail the freedoms mentioned above, or at least to restrain them. Consequently, when we say “political” we need to specify the world­ view and the interests involved. After a short introduction on the background of Israeli Higher Education Institutions (HEI), this article will focus on two current threats to academic freedom in Israel. First, political intimidation origi­ nating from extreme nationalistic and religious groups aimed at silenc­ ing “ nonloyal” voices inside as well as outside the universities; second, a process of “commodification” in the form of political-administrative pressures on HEI, and the enforcement of “management” and privatiza­ tion policies. Academic freedom is under duress in Israel because of the combination of these two different forces. They have been persistent for quite some tim e and now share a general attitude and goal; the “tam ing” of HEI. The result has been a m ajor crisis in Israeli higher education, both morally and financially. social research Voi 76 : No 2 : Summer 2009 541 BACKGROUND Education and learning, including higher education, were a top public priority among Jews in British Mandate Palestine and those in the diaspora concerned with Jewish settlement in Palestine before Israel was established in 1948. The Institute of Technology (Technion, 1924), the Hebrew University (1925 ), and the Weizmann Institute (1934) were established in the prestate period and achieved international reputa­ tion early in their existence. In the first years o f the state most spheres of life—health services, housing, and primary and secondary education—were highly politicized, and some of these services were run by organizations directly affiliated with political parties (Galnoor, 1985: 154-165). One area which was surprisingly saved from partisan politics was Higher Education (HE). This was surprising for three reasons. First, it would have been very tempting to try and harness HE to the pioneering collec­ tive endeavors of the new state by political interventions in the curricu­ lum and in other ways. Second, HEI, which required relatively heavy investments (tuition was very low, almost free), were financed by the state and donations from abroad. Third, although in the highly central­ ized state of that period the opposition to the policies of the dominant party was weak, some of the most vocal opposing views to government policies in the area of security and foreign affairs could be heard from a few rather influential professors at the Hebrew University. The most famous among them were Judah L. Magnes, Martin Buber, and later Yeshayahu Leibovitz. Thus one would have expected an attempt by the government to curtail this opposition and even set up a legal and organizational structure capable of doing so. It should be noted that the right-wing opposition parties in the Knesset would have not objected, since the dissenting academics were considered to be on the left as far as national issues were concerned. To be sure, all of the above occurred to some extent: there were pressures to be” relevant” to nation-building (for example, the high priority given to setting up a Faculty of Agriculture at the Hebrew University); attempts to delegitimize dissenting academ­ 542 social research ics; and some attempts to control HE administratively. In retrospect, however, we can see and appreciate that none of these measures were pushed relentlessly or actually succeeded. The best example of this fail­ ure of political intervention in the early years of the state is the Higher Education Law of 1958. In the deliberations in the Knesset on this bill there were suggestions to put HE under tight control of the Ministry of Education, or to set up a supervising council composed of represen­ tatives of the political parties (Volansky, 2005: 31-63). In the end, this law...

The rapid rise in the use of social media and in the dissemination of social media posts during the new millennium has blurred the line between professional publications and communications with the general public. The destructive effects of all forms of online hate speech, including antisemitism, have meanwhile become increasingly apparent. Yet the American Association of University Professors reacted in 2015 by declaring that all faculty statements on social media, including those within a faculty member’s areas of teaching and research, are protected from university evaluation by academic freedom. This reverses a long-standing principle that all statements in a faculty member’s areas of professional responsibility are part of his or her professional profile and subject to professional consequences and potential sanctions. Instead, racist or antisemitic social media posts are now to be deemed immune from consequences for job applicants and candidates for tenure. This development has the potential to undermine public confidence in academic freedom and in higher education’s overall ability to exercise professional judgment. A 2021 proposal went still further, arguing that a faculty member should be able to declare a specific body of work officially off limits, protected from any formal review.

Many traditional academics view the advent of on-line teaching in higher education with suspicion. They suspect that attempts to compare the outcomes of traditional and on-line instruction do not yield valid results. Nevertheless, on-line instruction is here to stay. It behooves an organization like the American Association of University Professors, a major role of which is to protect academic freedom in American higher education institutions, to make sure that the integration of on-line instruction into the activities of traditional higher education institutions will give rise, in the case of the new component, to the same guarantees as to academic freedom and quality, determined primarily by the faculty, as in traditional university activities.

Contemporary scholars acknowledge a powerful connection between academic tenure and freedom of speech. This study examines whether sufficient safeguards are in place to protect tenure and its concomitant atmosphere of free inquiry, expression, and speech. More specifically, the analysis considers whether the AAUP, institutional governance, and the federal court system offer protection. Particular attention is given to judicial cases in which tenured faculty have been dismissed for cause. The analysis concludes that a lack of clearly-defined protection leaves the tenure system and academic freedom in a potentially precarious condition.

Response Public Scholarship and Neoliberalism Eric L. Ball (bio) As someone who holds a doctorate in Modern Greek Studies I have enjoyed this opportunity to read the authors’ ideas about public scholarship as it relates both to the field and to the academy’s assumptions in general. I find it to be a difficult subject, especially in hard times—hard for many in the arts, humanities, and (nonscientistic) social sciences, but also for the academy at large, inasmuch as the academy is considered something other than a servant of economic development (as the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, say, or as a necessary ingredient of the public good). Although I work in an institution that approaches the question of scholarly activity differently than those of the authors—and I am shielded from many of the particular challenges they describe (I’m sure it works both ways)—I nevertheless experience the same underlying forces closing in, that same sky seeming to fall, and a sense that the same pitfalls are hiding just around the corner. I was struck by several themes. One is that the academy’s material conditions are changing in the context of neoliberal capitalism. Emmerich mentions “exorbitant tuitions (even at so-called state universities), skyrocketing student debt, ballooning administrations, and growing ranks of contingent faculty” and the “gutting of public higher education in the United States.” Ruprecht mentions “fiscal crisis” combined with an “increasingly ravenous desire for quick earnings among university administrators,” abusive “gutting of entire departments and programs,” and “the frenzied quest for limited financial resources” among faculty. He also points out an unfortunate connection between money and modern academic divisions of labor. To these I might add changing demographics (e.g., the sheer enrollments at, say, a University of Phoenix, a Kaplan, or a Liberty; adult higher education as increasingly unexceptional); the proliferation of credentialing; disturbances in areas like copyright and publishing; and a growing recognition that, in North America, the party is almost over for the middle class. Even the sharpest, most erudite, hardworking scholars in Higher Education Studies (or in academic labor [End Page 61] unions such as the American Association of University Professors or United University Professions) must find it incredibly challenging to take it all in and figure out what is going on, let alone to make empirically warranted recommendations about how we academics ought to proceed if we care about saving the academy as a safe space for carrying out the kinds of professional inquiry we have reason to value. Is there a lesson here? That our best hope is to keep articulating academic freedom as our core value, to continue engaging in academic discussions about what academic freedom means, and to keep striving to make our professional moves as consistent with this value (informed, to be sure, by available empirical evidence and critiques) as we can? With some caveats (see below), I did read the authors’ arguments to legitimize public scholarship as striving to make such a move. Another theme is the question of the relevance of certain kinds of scholarship to nonacademic folk. Emmerich, for example, discusses the translation of literary texts. Anagnostou considers difficulties in making a difference outside of academia when scholarly critical inquiry tends to lead down very different roads and to very different conclusions than lay inquiry. Such difficulties don’t bother me too much—hasn’t it always been the case? Ruprecht ups the ante, however, by mentioning an increase in the “public suspicion of … [the] moral seriousness and political relevance” of humanities scholars, which is more palpable among state legislators than students. This does concern me as a humanities professional, but mostly because it points at yet another possible example of the divide between the interests elected politicians actually serve and the interests of the electorates they ostensibly serve. While I take the authors’ points about particular kinds of intellectual work aimed at nonacademic audiences as a way to think about scholarship as public, I still wonder: Isn’t all scholarship, ideally, already public even if the public chooses to ignore or dismiss many of its products? Having embraced academic freedom as a core value, I conceive of scholarship as a...

The expression ‘autonomy’ means freedom from external control and influence. But what students’ autonomy and teachers’ autonomy constitute of has not been examined in detail in the Indian higher education (HE) settings. It is observed that students and teachers are often misleading and misinterpreting the concept of ‘autonomy’ as ‘legal freedom’ and confused autonomy with ‘civil and political rights’. This creates hurdle to achieve aims and objectives of Indian HE institutions. Against this background, the paper discusses the relation between students’ and teachers’ autonomy and their academic freedom in Indian higher education set up. It examines the relationship between ‘academic freedom’ and ‘university autonomy’. The paper submits that ‘academic freedom’ in Indian higher education institutions is not to be viewed as ‘legal freedom’. The paper adopts qualitative methodology that subsumes descriptive, evaluative and interpretative approaches to derive its conclusion for academics consideration and further critical examination.

الحریة الأکادیمیة والقیم الجامعیة

Academic. Not leading to a decision; unpractical; theoretical, formal, or conventional.Active. Opposed tocontemplativeorspeculative:Given to outward action rather than inward contemplation or speculation; practical; esp. with “life.”—Oxford English DictionaryTendentious as these definitions are, they refer to the colliding conceptions from which academic activism issues. The often reductive contrast between theory and practice, thinking and doing, has been used to regulate what is admissible as campus politics as if it were apparent in advance which actions were insufficiently imbued with reflection and which worldly commitments compromised disciplinary or institutional loyalty. Suffice it to say that drawing the boundary between activity appropriately inside and outside the academy has always been anxiously freighted. The pursuit of practically engaged knowledge has been constituted in a taut exchange with the very powers it has been called on to serve—persistently but not exclusively those of the state, of industry, and of professional associations (Newfield,Ivy; Readings; Chomsky; Starr). In the lineage of the Western university, degrees of critical separation from these authorities were hard-won and were conceived of as autonomy or academic freedom (Kant). The emergent disciplinary formations of the late nineteenth century made activist claims for equality in a self-designated professional cohort under the rubric of peer review. This compact, advanced by the American Association of University Professors, ceded institutional control to administrators in exchange for noninterference with the pursuit of specialized knowledge (even if manifest as political speech), which was apportioned to those elevated to the peerage through conferral of tenure (O'Neil; Thelin).

Academic Freedom, the American Association of University Professors, and the United States Supreme Court

A prominent sociologist and race relations activist, Charles S. Johnson dedicated his life to the advancement of Blacks. His presidency at Fisk University, a historically Black college, was the culmination of his career. During the latter part of his administration, he faced a dilemma involving an outspoken professor named Lee Lorch, who, in 1954, was accused of being a communist. Johnson and the Board of Trustees dismissed Lorch because he refused to answer a congressional committee's questions about his previous political affiliations. In 1959, the American Association of University Professors found the late President Johnson guilty of violating the principles of academic freedom. This article explores the ways in which academic freedom, civil liberties, and civil rights clashed in the Lee Lorch case. Furthermore, it examines the ways in which the setting of a historically Black college alters traditional assumptions about the application of these principles.