Students for Academic Freedom Report

Students for Academic Freedom is exclusively dedicated to the following goals:

1. To promote intellectual diversity on campus.
2. To defend the right of students to be treated with respect by faculty and administrators, regardless of their political or religious beliefs.
3. To promote fairness, civility, and inclusion in student affairs.
4. To secure adoption of the Academic Bill of Rights as official university policy, and the Student Bill of Rights as a resolution in student governments.
   

What is an Abuse of Academic Freedom?

Students for Academic Freedom supports the free speech rights of professors and believes that faculty members should be able to determine the content of their courses. These rights, however, do not provide a license to use the classroom as a political soapbox, or provide an excuse for a professor to ridicule or otherwise demean particular religious or cultural views
a student may hold. Nor do they supersede professors’ obligations to uphold professional educational standards. These include fairness to all students. They include the responsibility to make students aware of the spectrum of scholarly viewpoints on any given subject. They include the responsibility to counsel students and to encourage their intellectual development. Treating students as political adversaries is counter-productive to this task. These professional standards are recognized by the American Association of University Professors and have been since 1915.

In 1915, the American Association of University Professors issued its first report on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The premise of this report was 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 can be assumed to have a monopoly on wisdom. Therefore, learning is most likely to thrive in an environment of intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of thought and speech.

According to the AAUP’s professional guidelines, professors have an obligation to present their students with a diverse range of scholarly opinions on the subjects that they teach and should not deviate from their lesson plan to bring up controversial matters that have no bearing on the subjects. Violations of this professional conduct code include:

a. Assigning required readings or texts covering only one side of controversial issues (e.g., texts that are only pro- or anti-affirmative action)

b. Introducing controversial material that has no relation to the subject of the course (ex: making remarks on political issues in a math or science class; lecturing on the war in a class that is not about the war or about international relations)

c. Compelling students to express a certain point of view in assignments (e.g., at a college in Colorado a professor assigned students in a mid-term evaluation to explain why George W. Bush is a war criminal.)

d. Mocking national political or religious figures in a onesided manner (e.g., singling out only liberals for riducule or only conservatives)

e. Conducting political activities in class (e.g., recruiting students to attend political demonstrations or providing extra credit for political activism-type assignments)

f. Grading a students' political or religious beliefs (e.g., grading a student more leniently when they agree with the professor’s viewpoint on matters of opinion)

Academic Bill of Rights

I. 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. Academic Freedom

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 Òas 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, 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. 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 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.