Academic Freedom and Student Rights in Politicized Institutions
By: Aaron Barlow
ePluribus Media | Friday, May 02, 2008
Today, we are witnessing a
concerted attempt to politicize American public universities through
the institution of direct legislative oversight. Bills have been
recently introduced in Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma,
Virginia, and West Virginia and other states that would allow
politicians to meddle in the classroom1. Many of these bills base their legislation on David Horowitz's Academic Bill of Rights
(ABOR) and justify themselves through anecdotal information about abuse
of students in the classroom. Each year, legislation of this type is
beaten back but, each year, new bills are introduced, much to the
frustration of those of us involved in the defense of academic freedom.The
debate is able to continue in large part because it muddles real issues
of rights and governance, diverting what should be careful
consideration of a number of real issues down unproductive avenues,
diverting attention from very real yet distinct problems. For example,
the City University of New York (CUNY), where I teach, instituted a new
"Student Complaint Procedure" last year over the almost unanimous
opposition of the faculty—including mine. 2 My feeling was
that the new Procedure was a solution in search of a problem and an
opening for challenges to professors that could be used in unsettling
political attacks. However, I am now certain that I was wrong—to an
extent, at least. If for no other reason than clarification, standard
student rights procedures can help us avoid muddying debates on
academic freedom. If student rights and student complaint procedures
are carefully delineated, they can protect both students and faculty—a
need recently brought home to us at CUNY through the attacks on Anthony
Gronowicz3 and John Gerassi. 4 The lack of clear internal process or universal statement on student rights makes it possible for outsiders—Horowitz's Front Page Magazine, in the former case5 and The New York Post (reprinted at Front Page Magazine) in the latter6 —to make seem plausible accusations of bias concerning academic freedom that are, on close examination, untenable. There
is something of a sleight-of-hand in the conflation of academic freedom
and student rights in this new legislative movement, allowing what
seems at first to be an attempt to protect students to also serve as a
means for controlling faculty. This conflation is the problem, and the
reason we must carefully enunciate student rights. Though Horowitz and
confederates like Anne Neal of the American Council of Trustees and
Alumni (ACTA) 7 may claim that they are not looking to
institute legislative control over faculty and classroom management,
that would certainly be the upshot of any of the types of legislation
proposed, though its claim is simply protection of students.
As academic freedom is a
compact between faculties and university administrations and not, like
freedom of speech, a part of the rights for all set up under our system
of governance, trying to bring any part of it under legislative control
can undermine the entire system. By trying to expand academic freedom
to include students, whose needs and responsibilities are actually
quite distinct from those of faculty, Horowitz and Neal are purposely
opening the door for just such control. Certainly, academic freedom
affects students, and the responsibilities towards students through
academic freedom need to be monitored by the faculty as a whole. But
academic freedom does not include students. Student
rights, however, do need to be stated and affirmed as clearly as is
academic freedom, as a protection for both students and faculty. Let me
repeat: Doing so will make it impossible to use legislation that is
supposed to protect students as a means for controlling faculty, for
clear definition of the rights, roles, and responsibilities of each
will make jumping from one to the other quite difficult. Another
issue that is conflated with student rights and academic freedom by the
likes of Horowitz and Neal is that of freedom of speech. Though the
right covers speech on many of our campuses, this is not an academic
right, and should not be thought of as such. Also, it does not pertain
to situations within the classroom, though students do have the right
to speak concerning their classes. They may express themselves, and
have every protection all Americans enjoy, beyond, but the classroom
(like class work) operates under different constraints. Remember, each
class a student takes is an isolated and temporally-constrained
situation and is only one of about forty needed for graduation.
Restriction in that single class is not restriction of freedom of
speech, for that right continues around the class, just as it does
around a particular newspaper or magazine that may refuse to print a
particular opinion. After
arguing with Horowitz for more than a year—in print, online, and
privately—I came to realize that he and I were debating across each
other, that neither of us was presenting anything that could lead to
something beyond continued acrimony. As one of my points was that his
ABOR made no sense in its conflation of three concerns—student rights,
academic freedom, and freedom of speech—I decided that the best I could
do would be to tease these apart. I did this by taking the ABOR and
removing from it those aspects relating to academic freedom and freedom
of speech, reworking it into a Student Bill of Rights. With input from
Horowitz himself, I finally came up with my present revision, which he
claims he has no objection to:
| Explanation of Changes |
| Student Bill of Rights | An
“academic bill of rights” is much too broad of a document to work
effectively within contemporary environments of higher education. A
university is not a democracy, where each individual’s rights are
identical to those of each other. The nature of the roles of
administration, faculty, and students are distinct, and the rights of
each necessarily reflect those roles. Faculty rights are delineated in
the various statements on academic freedom that have been accepted by
university administrations, beginning with the AAUP 1915 Declaration of
Principles. This document, then, has been changed to reflect only the
rights and responsibilities of students. | Academic Bill of Rights | I.
The Mission of the University. The central purposes of a University are
the pursuit of truth, the discovery of new knowledge through
scholarship and research, the study and reasoned criticism of
intellectual and cultural traditions, the teaching and general
development of students to help them become creative individuals and
productive citizens of a pluralistic democracy, and the transmission of
knowledge and learning to a society at large. The separate freedoms of
inquiry and speech within the academic community are indispensable to
the achievement of these goals. Freedom to teach and to learn depends
upon the creation of appropriate conditions and opportunities on the
campus as a whole as well as in the classrooms and lecture halls. These
purposes reflect the values—pluralism, diversity, opportunity, critical
intelligence, openness and fairness—that are the cornerstones of
American society. | Because
of the conflation of academic freedom and freedom of speech, I felt it
necessary to make this alteration, stressing the differences. | I.
The Mission of the University. The central purposes of a University are
the pursuit of truth, the discovery of new knowledge through
scholarship and research, the study and reasoned criticism of
intellectual and cultural traditions, the teaching and general
development of students to help them become creative individuals and
productive citizens of a pluralistic democracy, and the transmission of
knowledge and learning to a society at large. Free inquiry and free
speech within the academic community are indispensable to the
achievement of these goals. The freedom to teach and to learn depend
upon the creation of appropriate conditions and opportunities on the
campus as a whole as well as in the classrooms and lecture halls. These
purposes reflect the values -- pluralism, diversity, opportunity,
critical intelligence, openness and fairness -- that are the
cornerstones of American society. | II. Student Freedom | Here again, the change in focus to student rights. | II. Academic Freedom | 1. The Concept:
Freedom of thought and intellectual diversity are indispensable to the
American university. These freedoms are most likely to thrive in an
environment of intellectual diversity that protects and fosters
independence of thought and speech. Though student rights and freedom
differ from those of faculty and researchers, they also play an
essential role in the success of the university. | AAUP statements on faculty have been omitted as not directly relevant to student rights. | 1. The Concept
. Academic freedom and intellectual diversity are values indispensable
to the American university. From its first formulation in the General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure
of the American Association of University Professors, the concept of
academic freedom has been premised on the idea that human knowledge is
a never-ending pursuit of the truth, that there is no humanly
accessible truth that is not in principle open to challenge, and that
no party or intellectual faction has a monopoly on wisdom. Therefore,
academic freedom is most likely to thrive in an environment of
intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of
thought and speech. In the words of the General Report, it is vital to protect "as the first condition of progress, [a] complete and unlimited freedom to pursue inquiry and publish its results." | Because
free inquiry and its fruits are crucial to the democratic enterprise
itself, freedom to pursue independent paths of inquiry is a national
value as well. This applies to students as well as to teachers and
researchers. In Sweezy v. New Hampshire, (1957) the Supreme
Court observed that the “essentiality of freedom in the community of
American universities [was] almost self-evident.” In our universities,
this freedom is already fostered through student choice of major and
course. Within that framework, students have additional rights and
responsibilities. | As the compact of academic freedom is not under consideration here, the discussion of Keyishian is deleted. | Because
free inquiry and its fruits are crucial to the democratic enterprise
itself, academic freedom is a national value as well. In a historic
1967 decision ( Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York
) the Supreme Court of the United States overturned a New York State
loyalty provision for teachers with these words: "Our Nation is deeply
committed to safeguarding academic freedom, [a] transcendent value to
all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned." In Sweezy v. New Hampshire,
(1957) the Court observed that the "essentiality of freedom in the
community of American universities [was] almost self-evident." | 2. The Practice:
Like faculty, students must have their own protection from the
imposition of any orthodoxy of a political, religious or ideological
nature. In 1967, the AAUP’s Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students reinforced
and amplified this injunction by affirming “the freedom to teach and
freedom to learn.” In the words of the report, “Students should be free
to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course
of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion.” | Though
student rights differ from those of faculty, they have fundamental
similarities. However, academic freedom has never (though the ABOR
claims otherwise) included students other than in terms of faculty
responsibilities. Thus, much of this section has been omitted. | 2. The Practice
. Academic freedom consists in protecting the intellectual independence
of professors, researchers and students in the pursuit of knowledge and
the expression of ideas from interference by legislators or authorities
within the institution itself. This means that no political,
ideological or religious orthodoxy will be imposed on professors and
researchers through the hiring or tenure or termination process, or
through any other administrative means by the academic institution. Nor
shall legislatures impose any such orthodoxy through their control of
the university budget. This
protection includes students. From the first statement on academic
freedom, it has been recognized that intellectual independence means
the protection of students - as well as faculty - from the imposition
of any orthodoxy of a political, religious or ideological nature. The
1915 General Report admonished faculty to avoid "taking
unfair advantage of the student's immaturity by indoctrinating him with
the teacher's own opinions before the student has had an opportunity
fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters in question, and
before he has sufficient knowledge and ripeness of judgment to be
entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own." In 1967, the
AAUP's Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students
reinforced and amplified this injunction by affirming the
inseparability of "the freedom to teach and freedom to learn." In the
words of the report, "Students should be free to take reasoned
exception to the data or views offered in any course of study and to
reserve judgment about matters of opinion." | Therefore,
to secure the intellectual independence of students, whose rights,
falling beyond the purview of the established doctrine of academic
freedom for faculty and researchers, have not been carefully and
clearly delineated, and to protect the principle of intellectual
diversity, the following principles and procedures shall be observed: | The
distinction between student rights and faculty rights (academic
freedom) is once more emphasized. The final paragraph has been deleted
for the simple reason that student rights should be recognized on all
campuses of every sort, while faculty rights of academic freedom are
more limited, being a specific compact between the faculty and the
institution. | Therefore,
to secure the intellectual independence of faculty and students and to
protect the principle of intellectual diversity, the following
principles and procedures shall be observed. These
principles fully apply only to public universities and to private
universities that present themselves as bound by the canons of academic
freedom. Private institutions choosing to restrict academic freedom on
the basis of creed have an obligation to be as explicit as is possible
about the scope and nature of these restrictions. |
| This is deleted as not relevant to student rights | All
faculty shall be hired, fired, promoted and granted tenure on the basis
of their competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of their
expertise and, in the humanities, the social sciences, and the arts,
with a view toward fostering a plurality of methodologies and
perspectives. No faculty shall be hired or fired or denied promotion or
tenure on the basis of his or her political or religious beliefs. |
| Like the previous point, this one pertains to faculty and not students, so is omitted. | No
faculty member will be excluded from tenure, search and hiring
committees on the basis of their political or religious beliefs. | Students
should always have an open right of appeal in all evaluative
situations, and the record of all past appeals should be available,
though with protection of student privacy. Grievance machinery should
be set up for this purpose. | Though a procedural point, students often do not know that they have this right, making it important that it be emphasized. |
| Students
will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers,
appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, and
on their conduct in the classroom—not on the basis of other beliefs. | The responsibility of appropriate conduct is added here as a necessary aspect of grading. | Students
will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and
appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not
on the basis of their political or religious beliefs. | Curricula
and reading lists should reflect the unsettled character of human
knowledge and its progress. Students have the right to know that a view
is currently contested within the field of study and to be provided
with access to dissenting materials. Students also have a
responsibility to reserve judgment, to honestly follow the line of
reasoning, rather than rejecting views they disagree with out of hand. | The
ABOR point here is so broad as to provide legitimatization of attempts
to disrupt a classroom. I have attempted to narrow this and to couple
it with the necessary student responsibility to listen first, then ask. | Curricula
and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect
the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge in these
areas by providing students with dissenting sources and viewpoints
where appropriate. While teachers are and should be free to pursue
their own findings and perspectives in presenting their views, they
should consider and make their students aware of other viewpoints.
Academic disciplines should welcome a diversity of approaches to
unsettled questions. | Academic
disciplines should welcome a diversity of approaches to unsettled
questions. Students have the right to learn in situations free of
political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination. | Though
diversity of opinion is important, it is not the responsibility of each
faculty member of provide a “spectrum.” Insisting that it is easily
leads to insistence on inclusion of “crackpot” ideas. | Exposing
students to the spectrum of significant scholarly viewpoints on the
subjects examined in their courses is a major responsibility of
faculty. Faculty will not use their courses for the purpose of
political, ideological, religious or anti-religious indoctrination. | Students
should have available to them at time of registration all possible
information about course choices, including reading lists, syllabi, and
faculty biographies, information that will allow them to make their
choices in a knowledgeable manner. | As
universities rely more and more on adjuncts and contingent hires,
students, particularly in lower-level courses, often have little idea
of who might be teaching them or what the approach might be. The
institutions should work to do their hiring in a timely manner so that
such information can be available. |
| A
diversity of student voices should be involved in selection of
speakers, allocation of funds for speakers programs and other student
activities designed to promote intellectual pluralism. An environment
conducive to the civil exchange of ideas being an essential component
of a free university, obstruction of this exchange will not be
tolerated. | As outside speakers don’t fall under concerns of student rights, a reworking of this point was necessary. | Selection
of speakers, allocation of funds for speakers programs and other
student activities will observe the principles of academic freedom and
promote intellectual pluralism. |
| This has been combined into point six of the SBOR. | An
environment conducive to the civil exchange of ideas being an essential
component of a free university, the obstruction of invited campus
speakers, destruction of campus literature or other effort to obstruct
this exchange will not be tolerated. |
| This conflation of the role of a student and the role of a scholar has no place in a Student Bill of Rights. | 6.
Knowledge advances when individual scholars are left free to reach
their own conclusions about which methods, facts, and theories have
been validated by research. Academic institutions and professional
societies formed to advance knowledge within an area of research,
maintain the integrity of the research process, and organize the
professional lives of related researchers serve as indispensable venues
within which scholars circulate research findings and debate their
interpretation. To perform these functions adequately, academic
institutions and professional societies should maintain a posture of
organizational neutrality with respect to the substantive disagreements
that divide researchers on questions within, or outside, their fields
of inquiry. |
In
a way, what the original ABOR has done is bring student rights into
conflict with academic freedom, while seemingly expanding the concept
of academic freedom to include students. By separating the issues,
perhaps we can make it easier for faculty to put the full force of
their support behind real student rights while also protecting their
own academic freedom. This separation may help reduce the current
politicization of academic institutions by closing one of the doors
that those who want to bring universities under legislative control
have pried open. No
longer would the cry of “protect the students” be an effective call to
pass laws like the Missouri “Emily Brooker Higher Education Sunshine
Act” which, according to testimony by Truman State University Professor
of History David Robinson’s testimony at a Missouri House of
Representatives Higher Education Committee, hearing on 5 February 2008,
“would have the opposite effect of its stated intentions: the
‘monitoring, tracking, reporting, and posting’--explicitly required by
the bill--would curtail academic freedom by imposing restrictions on
what can or cannot be taught.” 8 The bill, according to
Keith Hardeman is, Chair of the Communication and Fine Arts Department
at Westminster College, is “named after a Missouri State University
student who sued MSU because of a professor’s improper grading. The
entire department acted poorly. I
offer no defense for this absence of professionalism. It was an
incredible anomaly in the big picture. But she sued without engaging
the MSU appeals process, and once it was employed, the problem was
quickly corrected.” 9 If
there were a clear, consistent base for such appeals processes adopted
within colleges and universities nationwide, there would be lessened
possibility for legislators to try to use protection of student rights
as an excuse for attacking faculty academic freedom, which, as I have
said, has been falsely conflated with student rights. Institution
of the SBOR I propose, or of something like it, would not cause much
change in the processes of any college or university. In fact,
everything mentioned is already part of student rights just about
everywhere. The purpose here is to make it known and to provide a
common underpinning, so that we in academia can return to the real
issues to improving education and scholarship without so much of the
constant sniping from legislators who would bring our public university
classrooms, at least, directly under their control.
Footnotes- 1 Legislation Tracker for 2008, Free Exchange on Campus,
- 2 Source
- 3 Source
- 4 Source
- 5 Source
- 6 Source
- 7 Source
- 8 The full testimony can be found here
- 9 Hardeman, Keith, "Despite Histrionics, Professor Bias Rare" (Columbia Tribune, 2/8/08).
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