ACTA's Must-Reads
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Quote for the day
Words worth noting from a group of Columbia faculty, regarding the rights of non-academics to attend to and comment on academic affairs:
... the university has responsibilities to its students, alumni, donors, and outside community. When nonacademics and outsiders encounter or hear about what they consider inappropriate forms of
teaching, allegations of intimidation or harassment, or the distortion of basic historical or scientific facts, they are justified in expressing, and entitled by the First Amendment to express, their objections. No university administration has the power to prevent such expression.
Too often, such expression is cast by academics as interference -- when, in fact, is is nothing of the kind. People should be interested in what is happening within the academy--that's a sign that higher ed holds a respected, important place in our society. And people are always free to express their views about what's happening in academia, just as they are free to express their views about anything else. That's part of what it means to live in a free country.
Read the full statement and see the signatories here.
Posted by acta online on November 26, 2007 at November 26, 2007 11:11 AM
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Comments
Good for this group of Columbia faculty! I only wish there were more on the list.
Posted by: Mike at November 26, 2007 11:18 AM
As usual, ACTA tries to invent a "right" where none exists. The fact that the public is free to express views about universities absent government interference is so obvious that it does not need pointing out. That freedom does not amount to any positive legal right against a private university, however, whether defined as a "right" to demand accountability or a "right" to attend academic affairs, as you state here.
Posted by: Reader at November 26, 2007 01:33 PM
Reader wrote:
As usual, ACTA tries to invent a "right" where none exists. The fact that the public is free to express views about universities absent government interference is so obvious that it does not need pointing out.
Non-sequitor. Translation: The right doesn't exist and the right obviously exists.
"Reader" seems to have confused the legal right to express one's views, which ACTA champions, with ACTA suggesting that such a right necessarily translates into a legal right of some sort, a reading of the post that is not supported by the post, and is purely a figment of Reader's imaginaton.
Of course, the point of the post, which Reader missed entirely, was this:
Too often, such expression is cast by academics as interference -- when, in fact, is [sic] is nothing of the kind.
Posted by: trocantor at November 27, 2007 12:57 AM