Academic Freedom Syllabus (for students)

What is Academic Freedom?

During the early years of American higher education faculty served as at-will employees, and were often dismissed when their teaching, research, or public speech offended their employers. This became a particularly pressing issue during the early twentieth century, when faculty members expressing ideas about pacifism, socialism, evolution, and others were fired because their speech was deemed too controversial. In 1915 John Dewey, Arthur Lovejoy, and a handful of other faculty created the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to address this issue. The AAUP developed a number of key statements and policy documents that have helped enshrine academic freedom as a critical protection within higher education.

Today, however, academic freedom has come under renewed attack from trustees, donors, politicians, and partisan activists who are once again attempting to shape what can be taught, researched, and spoken on campus. Legislators have passed laws banning the teaching of so-called “divisive concepts.” University presidents have been hauled before Congressional hearings. And faculty have been punished–even fired–for their speech on a range of issues, including racial justice and Palestine.

Within this context, it has become more important than ever to understand what academic freedom is (and is not). For example, academic freedom is not–as it is often mischaracterized–the right for tenured faculty to say whatever they want, without consequence. Rather, unlike free speech, academic freedom is a corporate right, which structures how academics–tenured, untenured, and contingent–engage in their collective work of teaching, assessing research, publishing results, and speaking as public citizens. Academic freedom is institutionalized within practices of shared governance. And, as such, is contested and negotiated, subject to continued assessment and enactment.

 

Learning Objectives

Through this module, participants will learn to:

  1. understand the difference between academic freedom and free speech;
  2. situate the AAUP, and its understanding of academic freedom, within a historical context;
  3. explain the value of academic freedom and institutional autonomy;
  4. apply this robust understanding to specific controversies and situations on their campuses and beyond.


Primary Readings


Discussion Questions

  1. What are the primary differences between academic freedom and free speech? What is the purpose of First Amendment protection? How does this differ from the purpose of higher education?
  2. The AAUP institutionalized academic freedom in the 1940 Statement. What historical context gave rise to this statement? How has the state of higher education changed in the decades since? What do such changes mean for academic freedom today?
  3. What is shared governance? How is shared governance supposed to protect academic freedom? What are some of the evolving threats to shared governance and institutional autonomy today?
  4. Do your institutional policies, faculty manual, or collective bargaining agreement protect academic freedom and shared governance? Are these policies regularly followed by the administration? What might be needed to better protect academic freedom for all faculty on campus?