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Let the debate begin
Lately, we've seen a flurry of activity around the idea of academic freedom. The AAUP published a statement on "Freedom in the Classroom" in September, and last month a group of prominent academics formed the "Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University," while the AFT issued its own statement on academic freedom. All are premised on inaccurate and exaggerated claims about an "assault" on academic freedom that they allege is coming from outside the university--and none acknowledges the very real threats to academic freedom that are coming from within the academy in the form of speech codes, doctrinaire teaching, and ideologically one-sided personnel practices. The result is a set of statements that distort, deepen, and exemplify the problem they claim to address.
We've been pointing this out (see here and here). And we're in very good company. Stanley Fish, for instance, took the "Freedom in the Classroom" statement apart at the New York Times--and did so in ways that dovetail very much with ACTA's objections. Last week, the Chronicle of Higher Education made particular note of ACTA's commentary on the AFT statement--which could be summarized, ACTA president Anne Neal said, as "Give us more money and leave us alone." The Chronicle also highlighted ACTA's response to the Ad Hoc Committee, which it placed alongside the parallel assessments of FIRE founder and civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate and the New York Sun editorial board.
All of this is to say that the statements released by the AAUP, the AFT, and the Ad Hoc Committee should not be taken as authoritative or as immune from criticism. Each, in its own way, claims to adhere to traditional definitions of academic freedom, and presents itself as the uncontroversial and unequivocal defender of that definition. But each, also in its own way, uses that presentation to advance some distinctly controversial revisions of academic freedom as the AAUP originally framed it. We should view them not as definitive documents--but as starting points for a debate that is long overdue.
Posted by acta online on November 12, 2007 at November 12, 2007 07:28 PM
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