Academic freedom has recently become a recurring topic in the general media with claims from all corners of the political spectrum that free speech and expression are being suppressed on college campuses. In some instances, countervailing voices are accusing each other of attacking academic freedom for what the other side states is its defense.
The vanguard defender of academic freedom in the United States is the AAUP (American Association of University Professors). This organization is also the gold standard for research and well-articulated position papers on many facets of academic freedom and shared governance.
The touchstone for this topic is the AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure. It includes the following framework:
- 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 authorities of the institution.
- 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. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.
- 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. As scholars and educational officers, 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. [1]
Fundamentally, professors have freedom of inquiry and the freedom to promulgate the findings of their scholarship. They have freedom in the classroom within the bounds of their disciplinary expertise, and they have the full freedom of expression of all other citizen outside of the academy, but they should be mindful to clarify when they are not speaking as a representative of their institution.
Academic freedom is not a license to say whatever you want without consequence, but it is a protection to articulate your findings based upon your disciplinary expertise while exercising research integrity. Expertise matters. Academic freedom also protects the scholar from interference or undue influence from politicians, donors, corporations, trustees, and administrators.
Recently, academic advocacy groups have emerged on a number of campuses in response to what they perceive as a chilling, and in some cases a silencing, of campus speech, especially on the topics of Israel and Palestine and DEI.
We have also seen new levels of governmental involvement in these issues. The congressional hearings in which the presidents of Harvard, Penn, and MIT testified have no precedent in my lifetime, and sadly, for many Americans who watched these painful hearings, this is their only experience listening to a university president.
Since last year, 81 bills limiting DEI efforts on campuses have been introduced in 28 states. Eight have legislative approval and eight more have become law. There is legislation moving through the Arizona state government that would allow students to contest their grades to a new department under the Board of Regents that would have no disciplinary experts conducting the review. There is also a bill in Indiana that would give boards the ability to deny tenure and even revoke it for what they determine to be a lack of “intellectual diversity.”
The principles and standards of academic freedom were established to protect free inquiry, and in turn to support a free and open democratic society that benefits from the fruits of rigorous scholarship and research in which all questions can be asked, and for which legitimate answers can be found and disseminated even when they are uncomfortable to those in power.
Therefore, academic freedom is a critical safeguard of democracy and a foundational pillar of our democratic republic that we all should zealously defend and celebrate.
[1] AAUP: Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, 1940.