This statement lives in our faculty handbook so it only pertains to faculty. But it includes ALL faculty at ALL ranks, including *adjuncts,* assistant profs, etc.
Glaringly absent are the rights and expectation of students, mission of the institution, and accreditation. “Faculty” have too grand idea of themselves.
While the statement on academic freedom provides a good policy, in practice academic freedom is a fraught privilege.
If the prevailing political orientation of a department or entire college leans in one direction, a faculty member of a different orientation may decide that academic and social life is safer if opinions are kept to himself or herself. For a junior faculty member, prudence is a matter of professional life and death.
In 2018, Langford (NAS, Summer 2018) published his findings on the political identifications of faculty.
"Figure 1 illustrates the sharp differences across the departments or fields in the liberal arts colleges. The D:R ratios range from 1.6:1 for engineering to 56:0 and 108:0 for communications and interdisciplinary studies.
"My sample of 8,688 tenure track, Ph.D.–holding professors from fifty-one of the sixty-six top ranked liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News 2017 report consists of 5,197, or 59.8 percent, who are registered either Republican or Democrat. The mean Democratic-to-Republican ratio (D:R) across the sample is 10.4:1, but because of an anomaly in the definition of what constitutes a liberal arts college in the U.S. News survey, I include two military colleges, West Point and Annapolis.1 If these are excluded, the D:R ratio is a whopping 12.7:1."
I suspect things have not changed much since 2018, except that cancel culture has intensified and given faculty even more pause before publishing research that cuts against the prevailing grain.
The situation amounts to a de facto "academic freedom for thee, but not for me," in practice if not in policy.
I don’t know how you can deny this policy is about free speech. It explicitly says, “The four pillars of academic freedom are as follows: …3. Freedom of intramural speech…. 4. Freedom of extramural speech….”
So this policy says to faculty your hate speech is protected and we won’t fire you for that as long as you make it clear you’re not speaking for the college? Or am I missing something?
Hi Elizabeth. Thanks for taking the time to read and engage. That is not what the policy says. The statement is not about free speech. This is about academic freedom. It understandable because of the terminology that often these things are seen as interchangeable. But that is not the case. Academic freedom encompasses academic responsibility. The speech of professors in the context of teaching must be grounded in disciplinary expertise. So a geology professor cannot go into their class and teach as truth that the earth is flat. When it comes to extramural speech the berth is wider for faculty speech, but as per AAUP's 1915 statement, there are limits there too e.g. when what a professor says legitimately raises questions about their fitness to teach.
In scientific domains subject to independent experiment and verification, what you seems practically enforceable.
But let's get down to what's suddenly triggered discussion: the war in Gaza and the questioning of Israel's existence. In this area, research and it's interpretation is highly subject, and it's conclusions are often effective causes to action that can can directly damage students and their families. How does the framework deal with that. Without directly and explicitly addressing this issue, this declaration doesn't mean much
You didn’t address my comment or my concern at all, just giving me dodgy nonsense. I’ll take your school off our college search list for our straight-A 1550 SAT 11th grade son. I don’t think he would feel welcome or safe at your school.
Did I miss it? The statement of the academic freedoms of non-professors (TA's, assistant professors et al) and students?
This statement lives in our faculty handbook so it only pertains to faculty. But it includes ALL faculty at ALL ranks, including *adjuncts,* assistant profs, etc.
Glaringly absent are the rights and expectation of students, mission of the institution, and accreditation. “Faculty” have too grand idea of themselves.
While the statement on academic freedom provides a good policy, in practice academic freedom is a fraught privilege.
If the prevailing political orientation of a department or entire college leans in one direction, a faculty member of a different orientation may decide that academic and social life is safer if opinions are kept to himself or herself. For a junior faculty member, prudence is a matter of professional life and death.
In 2018, Langford (NAS, Summer 2018) published his findings on the political identifications of faculty.
https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/31/2/homogenous_the_political_affiliations_of_elite_liberal_arts_college_faculty
"Figure 1 illustrates the sharp differences across the departments or fields in the liberal arts colleges. The D:R ratios range from 1.6:1 for engineering to 56:0 and 108:0 for communications and interdisciplinary studies.
"My sample of 8,688 tenure track, Ph.D.–holding professors from fifty-one of the sixty-six top ranked liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News 2017 report consists of 5,197, or 59.8 percent, who are registered either Republican or Democrat. The mean Democratic-to-Republican ratio (D:R) across the sample is 10.4:1, but because of an anomaly in the definition of what constitutes a liberal arts college in the U.S. News survey, I include two military colleges, West Point and Annapolis.1 If these are excluded, the D:R ratio is a whopping 12.7:1."
I suspect things have not changed much since 2018, except that cancel culture has intensified and given faculty even more pause before publishing research that cuts against the prevailing grain.
The situation amounts to a de facto "academic freedom for thee, but not for me," in practice if not in policy.
I don’t know how you can deny this policy is about free speech. It explicitly says, “The four pillars of academic freedom are as follows: …3. Freedom of intramural speech…. 4. Freedom of extramural speech….”
So this policy says to faculty your hate speech is protected and we won’t fire you for that as long as you make it clear you’re not speaking for the college? Or am I missing something?
Hi Elizabeth. Thanks for taking the time to read and engage. That is not what the policy says. The statement is not about free speech. This is about academic freedom. It understandable because of the terminology that often these things are seen as interchangeable. But that is not the case. Academic freedom encompasses academic responsibility. The speech of professors in the context of teaching must be grounded in disciplinary expertise. So a geology professor cannot go into their class and teach as truth that the earth is flat. When it comes to extramural speech the berth is wider for faculty speech, but as per AAUP's 1915 statement, there are limits there too e.g. when what a professor says legitimately raises questions about their fitness to teach.
Thanks again for taking the time to read.
In scientific domains subject to independent experiment and verification, what you seems practically enforceable.
But let's get down to what's suddenly triggered discussion: the war in Gaza and the questioning of Israel's existence. In this area, research and it's interpretation is highly subject, and it's conclusions are often effective causes to action that can can directly damage students and their families. How does the framework deal with that. Without directly and explicitly addressing this issue, this declaration doesn't mean much
You didn’t address my comment or my concern at all, just giving me dodgy nonsense. I’ll take your school off our college search list for our straight-A 1550 SAT 11th grade son. I don’t think he would feel welcome or safe at your school.