BY HANK REICHMAN
The following is the text of an op-ed piece published July 20, 2021 in the San Francisco Chronicle.
From the nationwide spate of legislation targeting “critical race theory” to the recent controversy at Cal State East Bay, where crude and unscholarly claims about the “intelligence” of racial groups were included in an economics curriculum, concerns about what professors may write, teach in class or say in public are on the rise. In response, educators often claim, with justification, that their work and thoughts must be protected by “academic freedom.”
But what is “academic freedom” exactly?
For some, the term has degenerated into calls for academic license, the alleged right of individual faculty members to teach whatever and however they wish or to say whatever comes to mind, regardless of scholarly validity. For others, academic freedom comes across as a claim of privilege by a professorial elite, who wish to be insulated from public accountability.
The ease with which some professors, administrators, trustees — and even politicians — piously invoke these words even as they misrepresent their meaning demands a more coherent definition.
Like freedom of speech, academic freedom is not readily defined by ironclad rules. Instead, it emerges from the application of guiding principles, developed and modified over time.
Ever since the American Association of University Professors first elaborated the principle in 1915 and then, with the Association of American Colleges (now the Association of American Colleges and Universities), in 1940 codified it, academic freedom has been understood to comprise three interconnected freedoms: freedom to conduct research and to publish the results, freedom to decide how and what to teach, and freedom from institutional discipline for public statements made by faculty members as citizens, including on topics removed from their academic expertise.
Academic freedom grants considerable scope to the consciences of individual teachers and researchers, but it functions ultimately as the collective freedom of the scholarly community to govern itself in service of the common good in a democratic society. In the classroom, this means, first of all, that instructors must avoid persistently intruding material which has no relation to their subject.
Their role is to educate, not indoctrinate. But what defines that distinction?
In a 2007 report, the American Association of University Professors argued that “indoctrination occurs when instructors assert propositions in ways that prevent students from expressing disagreement. Vigorously to assert a proposition or a viewpoint, however controversial, is to engage in argumentation and discussion — an engagement that lies at the core of academic freedom.”
Some instructors may prefer to present subjects as dispassionately and evenhandedly as possible. Others may choose to expound preferred, even contentious, theories. Freedom in the classroom applies to controversial opinions and detached agnosticism, as long as they are not presented as unchallengeable dogma.
Academic freedom does not permit instructors to punish or personally disparage a student in class or elsewhere for that student’s background or views. Moreover, instructors have a professional obligation to consider carefully where different students may draw the line between intellectual provocation and personal insult.
Still, students have no right not to have their beliefs challenged or to always be given “trigger warnings” for material that some might find objectionable. As the 2007 university professors association report put it, “Ideas that are germane to a subject under discussion in a classroom cannot be censored because a student with particular religious or political beliefs might be offended.”
Academic freedom should not be confused with free speech. Controversial, offensive or disproven ideas acceptable on social media or even in an op-ed may not be valid in a scholarly environment. However, when they express themselves as citizens, college and university faculty members should have the same free speech rights as anyone else, including where, as happened last year at an Iowa community college, outsiders threaten campus safety if the professor is not dismissed for views expressed on social media. Academic freedom ensures that, even in a private institution, instructors will be free of censorship or institutional discipline for their public remarks, however offensive some may find these.
In short, when objections are raised, neither the popularity of a professor’s personal opinions nor that professor’s conformity to external political criteria should matter. Academic freedom allows only proven fitness to teach and conduct research, as judged by qualified academic peers, to be considered. It guarantees to both faculty members and students the right to engage in intellectual inquiry and debate without fear of retaliation.
Contributing editor Hank Reichman is professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay; former AAUP vice-president and president of the AAUP Foundation; and from 2012-2021 Chair of AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His book, The Future of Academic Freedom, based in part on posts to this blog, was published in 2019. His Understanding Academic Freedom will be published in October.
While I think this is another excellent description of academic freedom as “the application of guiding principles, developed and modified over time,” I don’t know if it addresses the concerns I and others have been raising.
To take a cue from Thomas Kuhn, the rules discussed here work perfectly well during the period of what we might call “normal science.” That is, when there is reasonable consensus on how institutions of higher education work, who they serve, what kind of knowledge will be produced and for what kind of society, etc. But I propose that this debate over CRT is the result of a paradigm shift that demands a more fundamental reappraisal of how we do business and why.
I’m not alone. In a reply to Jennifer’s post last Monday, July 19th, “What Responsibility Do All Academics Have to Critical Race Theory?” Kelly Hand linked an article by historian Adam Shapiro who notes parallels between the current panic about teaching structural racism to the panic over teaching evolution a century ago. While I appreciate the claim that “[f]reedom in the classroom applies to controversial opinions and detached agnosticism, as long as they are not presented as unchallengeable dogma,” it plainly would be false to suggest that higher education as a whole and the AAUP in particular have not thrown their full weight behind the “dogma” of evolution at the expense of creationism. And this despite the fact that the vast majority of institutions of higher education began as religious institutions, including Harvard, Yale, Chicago, and others. Institutions of higher education and the AAUP chose sides because evolution, secularism, and the authority of science do a better job of helping to explain the world and to produce new knowledges for an increasingly complex global community than creationism, religion, and the authority of any given religious text can.
I know Professor Reichman knows much better than I do the histories of how academic freedom was defined against those who insisted on religious dogma, including those running proprietary institutions. But unless I am mistaken, the AAUP is proudly and resolutely secular and always has been. Yet, the statement on academic freedom written in 1915 and revised in 1940 offered some concessions to trustees and administrations of proprietary institutions to impose religious dogma on professors as well as students — but if and only if faculty members were made aware of these “religious limitations on academic freedom” before they signed their contracts. However, the stigma of this academic second-class status was so effective that by 1970 the association announced that “[m]ost church-related institutions no longer need or desire the departure from the principle of academic freedom implied in the 1940 ‘Statement,’ and we do not now endorse such a departure.”
Even as religion was increasingly sidelined through the 19th and 20th centuries, knowledge continued to be produced with the assumptions of white supremacy, male supremacy, and the like firmly in place. I agree with Shapiro that these attacks on CRT point to very real anxieties about the status of knowledge that was produced under these conditions. Thus, this is not a question about how to conduct a classroom, or what teachers can say when, or convincing our interlocutors that we’re right. This is a battle over who has the authority to produce and disseminate knowledge, which knowledge counts as knowledge and for what purposes. If we want our institutions to work against a multicultural democracy, then our interlocutors are right to see CRT and all efforts to understand and dismantle systemic racism as a threat. If, on the other hand, we want our institutions to serve a multiracial democracy, then Jennifer is correct to insist that all academics, from the left to the right, have a responsibility to defend CRT and other efforts to dismantle systemic racism in the interest of the common good.
But what about institutions where the administrators, trustees, students, faculty, and staff are not interested in a multiracial democracy? Perhaps the AAUP should consider creating a new limitations clause like the “American exceptionalist limitation on academic freedom.”
Mark, as I’m sure you understand, this was an op-ed piece published in a daily newspaper, which gave me permission to repost after a week had passed since its publication. It was limited to 750 words and, of course, subject to the newspaper’s editorial requirements and can hardly do much more than scratch the surface of a few issues. My intent was simply to introduce a broader public to what academics mean when we speak of academic freedom. I discuss the sorts of issues you’re raising, including both the “limitations clause” and what counts as “knowledge,” at greater length in my forthcoming Understanding Academic Freedom (https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/understanding-academic-freedom).
Yes, but you reposted it here so I responded to it in this context. I hope you know how much I admire your work and that I will be among the first in line when that new book drops!
I do know, of course, and thank you. They’re taking preorders, but I’m hoping that an AAUP member discount will be arranged as with my previous book. Yet another one of the many, many perks of membership!!!
I disagree with Hank on a few details, and I believe that free speech and academic freedom are much more intertwined ideas. But I’m most concerned about one line that I think could be misinterpreted by some people: “Academic freedom does not permit instructors to punish or personally disparage a student in class or elsewhere for that student’s background or views.”
I don’t agree with that kind of sweeping statement, although I agree that instructors generally should not do this. Punish and disparage are different things, as are background and views. A student’s background should not be attacked, but their views are a different matter. If a student believes something that’s false, they can be punished in their grades for getting something wrong on a test. Likewise, if a student regularly disrupts a class with conspiracy theories, their class participation grade can be lowered for their views.
Disparage is a big category; it includes everything from strongly rejecting what a student believes (which is protected by academic freedom) to denouncing them personally (which is more ambiguous, but can be protected by academic freedom). If a student says something racist in class, should a professor remain silent, or can you call racism by its name? Condemnation may not be the best approach, but I think it can sometimes be permitted, and we ought to generally trust faculty and give them the freedom to imperfectly manage difficult situations. Finally, there is the issue of an instructor publicly disparaging someone who is a student. This is protected by academic freedom, and includes the case at the University of Nebraska which is censured by the AAUP for firing a graduate student instructor who insulted a student at a TPUSA table on the quad. These are complex issues that can’t be addressed in a short op-ed, but I would worry if any college adopted a “non-disparagement” clause for faculty with regard to students.
Well, I certainly agree that “complex issues . . . can’t be addressed in a short op-ed.” So I’ll take another opportunity to promote my forthcoming book (https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/title/understanding-academic-freedom), although some of these issues could fill much more than the chapter on teaching in which I address them.
That said, I will stand by my statement as a general rule, which is how I am sure most have read it. When a student “believes something that is false” and hence gets it “wrong on a test” the student is punished not for their views, but for their mistaken answer. Students may passionately believe that the earth was created in six days, but a geology test asks them to demonstrate that they know what geologists believe; if they don’t, they may be “punished” for that. Similarly, “if a student regularly disrupts a class with conspiracy theories, their class participation grade” may indeed be lowered, not for their views but for their disruptive activity. As for racist remarks, they should be called out, but even here the issue is not the person but the idea, hence it is generally (if not always) more effective and even more accurate to say “that’s a racist idea” or “that’s a racist practice” than to say “you’re a racist.”
As I wrote in the very next paragraph, “Still, students have no right not to have their beliefs challenged.” (Actually, I wrote “not have EVEN their MOST CHERISHED beliefs challenged,” but the Chronicle editor took the capitalized words out in the interest of space and I decided not to object. That’s what happens, you know.)
The 1967 “Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students” notes that professors “should encourage free discussion, inquiry, and expression. Student performance should be evaluated solely on an academic basis, not on opinions or conduct in matters unrelated to academic standards.” It is thus improper, the AAUP’s 2007 report “Freedom in the Classroom” reiterates, for any instructor “to hold a student up to obloquy or ridicule in class for advancing an idea grounded in religion … politics, or anything else.” But that report also adds, “It is neither harassment nor discriminatory treatment of a student to hold up to close criticism an idea or viewpoint the student has posited or advanced. Ideas that are germane to a subject under discussion in a classroom cannot be censored because a student with particular religious or political beliefs might be offended.”
I should, perhaps, respond also to John’s invocation of the Nebraska case. In that case the AAUP investigation concluded that the instructor’s “dismissal was related to the political content of her speech and thus MAY have violated her academic freedom” [emphasis added], but the principal issues were summary dismissal and lack of due process which left the possibility of an academic freedom violation “unrebutted.” In any event, however, this was expression outside the classroom and my point about disparagement was clearly about classroom teaching, which I am certain is how most if not all other readers understood it. For the record, I might also add, I would be as skeptical as John of the advisability of blanket “non-disparagement” policies, but I don’t think I suggested anything of the sort in this little op-ed.
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