THE
ELEMENTS OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM, CENTRAL AND PERIPHERAL
Murray
Miles
Paper read at the Symposium "The
Future of Liberal Learning: Freedom of Speech and Justice on Campus".
Published in the Brock University Faculty Association Newsletter BUFA Forum, December and March issues.
To begin this session, I’d like to broach a number of conceptual
matters pertaining to academic freedom. I’ll confine myself to
principles, leaving it to other presentations and the subsequent
discussion to apply them to cases. In section 1, I’ll set out the
elements of the core concept of academic freedom as embodied in most
existing and proposed policy statements on the subject. In
section 2 I’ll examine briefly four of the more controversial areas of
academic freedom. The process of evaluation, I’ll argue in
section 3, raises a number of genuine but neglected academic freedom
issues. In the final section, I’ll consider very briefly who
else, besides faculty and students, may require protection if the
academic freedom of faculty and students is to be adequately
safeguarded.
1. The Core Concept of Academic Freedom. The precise
extension of the concept of academic freedom is the subject of
controversy, but, at least among those who value it, there is general
agreement upon a ‘core’ which includes three fundamental
freedoms: faculty members enjoy the freedoms of (1) teaching, (2)
conducting research, and (3) publishing, all without deference to
prescribed doctrine and without interference or censorship by their
institution or others. These freedoms are acknowledged in the
anonymously produced “Statement on academic freedom and academic
responsibility” which was discussed (but not adopted) at the AUCC Board
meeting on academic freedom in October 1995. The statement on
academic freedom in the CAUT Handbook (Ottawa, 1979, p. 46) asserts
that academic freedom entitles members of the academic community
“regardless of prescribed doctrine, to freedom in carrying out research
and in publishing the results thereof, freedom of teaching and of
discussion, freedom to criticize the university and the faculty
association, and freedom from institutional censorship.” Most
memoranda of agreement and employment contracts at Canadian
universities are based on the CAUT statement and so make explicit
mention of the three core freedoms.
2. Some Disputed Questions. These freedoms are, in the
words of the “Background Paper” produced by the OCUA Task Force on
Resource Allocation (March, 1995), the “central elements of the
definition of academic freedom” (p. 4). As one moves away from
them, “one enters progressively into territory around which less
consensus is possible” (ibid.). In this section, I’ll consider
four such areas: (a) extra-mural speech, particularly on subjects
outside one’s area of scholarly expertise; (b) speech that may be
deemed foolish or irresponsible; (c) judgements concerning the quality
of academic programmes; (d) institutional autonomy.
(a) The first is one of those areas in which the AUCC draft
“Statement on academic freedom and academic responsibility” attempts to
introduce restrictions: “Individuals or groups of individuals
have the freedom to carry out scholarly research within areas of their
expertise without reference or adherence to prescribed doctrine” (my
italics). I can’t do better than to quote former CAUT President
Donald Savage’s response to this: “The use of the phrase ‘within
areas of their expertise’ is inappropriate and should be omitted.
It is too narrow and too easily subject to arbitrary and abusive
application. For example, academics can apply their research
tools to social issues. This holds regardless of the topics of
their theses or other academic publications. Surely the AUCC does
not hold it improper for a chemist (Linus Pauling), a mathematician
(Bertrand Russell) or a linguist (Noam Chomsky) to write about peace,
economics, history or social justice. The very public expression
of views by such non-experts has played a major role in the development
of the free societies which we are now privileged to inhabit.”
The position here rejected by CAUT has been endorsed by others, for
example by Paul Dressel: “Academic freedom provides no cloak of
security for scholars making pronouncements in other fields... Academic
freedom does not excuse and cannot and should not provide protection to
the scholar who engages in intemperate expressions of personal opinion,
in shoddy modes of investigation, or in biased reporting, even in his
own field of scholarship” (“The Autonomy of Public Colleges,” New
Directions for Institutional Research, No. 26, 1980, p. 3; quoted in
the Task Force document). So the question of extra-mural speech
outside one’s areas of expertise is at least less clear-cut than the
core freedoms discussed first.
(b) The first part of Dressel’s statement (pronouncements “in other
fields”) has been dealt with faithfully by Savage. As for the
remainder (“intemperate expression of personal opinion”), this raises
the second issue to be considered here. If Dressel means that
academic freedom is not the freedom to manifest scholarly dishonesty or
incompetence with impunity, then I agree; but if he means (as he seems
to) that only speech which is based on impeccable scholarship is
protected from censure and censorship, then I differ.
It is the responsibility of intellectuals to examine positions
critically, to expose bias, falsehood, faulty logic, and shoddy
research wherever they occur. And in certain situations it is
also their responsibility to assess critically and impartially the
quality of their peers’ work. Those who make a habit of foolish,
false, or unsupported assertions, who misinterpret (without
deliberately falsifying) their data, or become the paid servants of
special interest groups lay themselves open to negative criticism and
evaluation, perhaps even to ridicule or moral condemnation — but
surely not to university discipline or censorship. To quote from
the CAUT “Reply...” to the Ontario Government’s ‘Framework
Document’: “Professors in their private capacity like any other
citizens are free to say anything within the law, however foolish or
however groundless or however unkind...” The same document goes
on to add, however: “but the moment they put such pronouncement
on their official university research record, they acknowledge that the
university through proper and fair procedures has an obligation to
judge the merits of the research involved” (p. 16). In other
words, publication of such opinions may lead to penalties the moment
such work is listed on official university c.v.’s. But it is
vitally important, as a matter of due process, that when charges of
professional incompetence or dishonesty are brought or investigated,
this be done in the normal course of performance review procedures and
not through special investigation of individuals who espouse views
deemed foolish or offensive.
(c) A third area of dispute is described by Edward Shils as “the right
and obligation to participate in decisions regarding the substance and
form of courses of study, examinations, the marking of examinations,
and the awarding of degrees” (“Do we Still Need Academic
Freedom,” The American Scholar, Vol. 62, No. 2 (1993), p. 190
[cited in OCUA Task Force paper]). These decisions are taken by the
academic governing body of the institution (the Senate or
equivalent). While Shils regards it as the faculty member’s
“right and obligation to participate in academic self-government,” the
Task Force authors regard this as confounding academic freedom, an
individual right, with university autonomy, which is a collective
right. However, it’s not hard to see that there may be individual
rights at stake here as well. Does academic freedom include
the freedom of individual professors to criticize academic policies,
practices, and programmes without fear of institutional or other
censorship or censure? May they do so outside as well as within
university governing bodies, even outside the university itself?
Is this not only a right, but a responsibility, as Shils seems to
suggest? If it is only a collective right or responsibility, then
it would seem to be confined to the university bodies charged with
exercising such scrutiny. Since Shils regards it also as an
individual responsibility, incumbent on each faculty member, he can’t
really be accused of confounding individual and group rights. The
question, whether it may legitimately be exercised outside the
university brings us to a fourth area about which there is some
dispute: institutional autonomy.
(d) The precise extension of this concept is itself disputed, but
again there is a certain core of institutional responsibilities which
are the object of a very wide consensus. Thus the right to
appoint faculty, to establish programmes, to set and control
curriculum, admissions, degree requirements, and the relation between
teaching and research mark out areas of relatively undisputed
institutional autonomy. Similarly, there are certain controls
which are clearly the prerogatives of government. These include,
for example, setting the level of public support for higher education,
ensuring an equitable distribution of such support, ensuring the
diversity and complementarity of institutional missions. Outside
these areas of educational policy, on the one hand, and government
expenditure on the other, there is much less consensus about the
respective roles of academic institution and government bureaucracy
concerning, for example, the institution’s non-academic budget, its
personnel policy, capital investments and expenditures, and the
like. The Task Force authors quoted earlier maintain that the
“state is often also assigned responsibility for the assurance of
program quality and co-ordination (which implies the existence of a
mechanism for program approval and review)” (p. 20f.). This seems
reasonable enough. The granting of a Charter cannot mean carte
blanche for the institution to do what it will in the areas of
programme and curriculum. There must be effective mechanisms,
external as well as internal, of “quality control,” as a matter of
public accountability. If university administrations and Senates
fail to exercise their prerogatives properly, if, for example, they
fail to address key educational issues or withhold or distort
information needed by those charged with assessment of programme
quality, they invite questions about their right to autonomous
self-governance even in the key areas of educational policy.
Arguably, it then becomes the responsibility of individual professors
to speak out — extra-murally, if need be. Universities are
right to resist any and all efforts to make them the instruments of the
social policies of the government of the day. (One could wish
they were more vigorous in this.) But the call for greater and
more effective academic as well as fiscal monitoring may be
justified. And if the public can legitimately demand such
accountability, surely individual professors have the right to make and
press similar demands without fear of institutional reprisals.
3. Neglected Areas: Evaluation. Without much doubt,
the central academic freedom issue today is freedom of
expression. Given this fact, we tend to understand academic
freedom primarily in terms of the ‘core’ freedoms. Such debate as
there is tends to revolve around freedoms like those considered in the
previous section.
However, there’s a second component to academic freedom, namely the
right to have one’s teaching and research evaluated on their
pedagogical and scholarly merits alone by qualified and objective
assessors. One has only to reflect for a moment on the
alternative — namely assessment by extra-academic criteria, including
(for example) membership in some political or biological group, or by
individuals lacking the requisite competence or the necessary
detachment — to see that evaluation too is an academic freedom
issue. To quote again from Shils: “It [academic freedom] is
immunity from decisions about academic matters taken on other than
academic or intellectual grounds, by academic, governmental,
ecclesiastical, or political authorities.” Evaluation is such an
“academic matter.” Thus while I agree that combating censorship
must be the main line of defence of academic freedom, evaluation seems
to me quite central as well.
Some form of evaluation of faculty members takes place in all of the
following contexts: appointment, reappointment, tenure,
promotion, merit rating, preferment to administrative office. In
universities it is generally acknowledged that academic achievement, as
assessed by impartial and competent peers, is either an important or
the only factor in such decisions. More debatable is whether the
intrusion of extra-academic considerations constitutes a violation of
academic freedom. The suggestion is most easily resisted in the
case of preferment to administrative office, to which a very wide range
of competences may be relevant. Of course, if we accept the
premise articulated by Shils, and if all the above, including
administrative appointments, are “academic matters,” as they seem to
be, then the conclusion is inescapable.
4. Students and Others. I come, finally, to students’
academic freedom and the question, whether academic freedom issues are
confined to professors and students. As far as the
evaluation of students is concerned, the principles set out already
apply here as well (mutatis mutandis). Academic performance must
be assessed by intellectual criteria, failing which the academic
freedom of students (and not just their right to equality of treatment)
is compromised. This means, for one thing, that students have the
right to think critically and independently, without deference to
professors’ or anyone else’s opinions, and to be assessed on the
intellectual quality of their performance rather than their
conclusions. For another, it means that if one student is treated
preferentially — say, in decisions about admissions to an institution
or programme, or in grading practices, or in obtaining letters of
recommendation — be it on account of political views, biological
characteristics, or personal relations with the instructor, the
academic freedom of all students assessed on a competitive basis with
that student is violated. By this reasoning, conflict of interest
or sexual harassment involving a student and a professor is not just a
personnel matter to be dealt with by the university administration in
accordance with institutional procedures; it’s an academic freedom
issue as well, and as such concerns everyone who has made the defence
of academic freedom his business.
Of course, the academic freedom of students extends beyond evaluation
matters; it includes due process in discipline for offences like
plagiarism and cheating as well as basic constitutional
liberties: expression, publication, assembly,
demonstration. Violations of students’ academic freedom also
occur when restrictions are imposed by other students, by faculty, or
by university administrations on what or whom they may read or hear in
the classroom and elsewhere on campus.
But does academic freedom extend to anyone besides students and
professors? While I don’t think that anyone else possesses the
rights and responsibilities associated with academic freedom, I believe
that anything that pertains to the defence of academic freedom can and
should be considered an academic freedom issue. Thus, for
example, when a member of the clerical or technical support staff
intervenes (say) as a witness in an investigation involving the
academic freedom of students, if that staff member is subsequently
subjected to reprisals, such treatment is not just an employment nor
just a human rights issue; it’s an academic freedom issue as well.
Just how broad is the notion of academic
freedom then? As I’ve said all along, the core about which there
is consensus is fairly restricted. But as it has a centre, so
academic freedom has a periphery. This much, at least, seems
clear if it’s legitimate to ask, not just who has academic freedom, but
what cases of discrimination, censorship, and harassment raise academic
freedom issues.
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