Jim Flowers: Academic Freedom

Academic Freedom and Conservative Philosphy

Wed, 12 Jan 2005 16:49:43 GMT

Just finished Russell Kirk's treatise on Academic Freedom (no longer in publication). Released 50 years ago at the time the academic community was reverberating from the McCarthy hearings, I find many of the arguments appropriate to today's discussion brought on by David Horowitz (ironically - an EX-communist) and his attempts to legislate "Academic Freedom" as Mr. Horowitz defines such.

There are many salient points, but I find this position taken by Mr. Kirk to be telling of the distance between true conservatives and those who have taken the label as cover:

First, let me set down my premises as to the relationship that ought to exist between the State and the Academy. In ordinary circumstances, the State (by which I mean any political organ of society) should abstain on principle from taking any direct part in the guidance or governance of our institutions of learning; and the Academy, taken as a body, should abstain on principle from a preoccupation with politics. (Academic Freedom : An essay in definition, pg. 141).

Horowitz's minions claim indoctrination by institutions is the reason legislation is needed. However, poor excuses for faculty do not an institutional conspiracy or doctrine make. Prudence is needed on this very issue as well as much introspection by the faculty and administration of institutions of higher learning.

Academic Freedom - Sayings and etchings

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 18:52:04 GMT

From Questia:

Academic Freedom - Selected Resources

Freedom and Tenure in the Academy
by William W. Van Alstyne. 430 pgs.
Tenure, Academic Freedom and the Teaching of Critical Thinking, in College Student Journal
by Frank A. Stancato. 6 pgs.
Tenure for Socrates: A Study in the Betrayal of the American Professor (Part III "Truth and Academic Freedom")
by Jon Huer. 218 pgs.
Resuscitating the Constitutional "Theory" of Academic Freedom: A Search for a Standard beyond Pickering and Connick, in Stanford Law Review
by Ailsa W. Chang. 52 pgs.
Protecting Academic Freedom in the 21st Century, in Social Education
by William J. Stegmayer. 4 pgs.
Free Speech in the College Community ("Academic Research and Academic Freedom" p. 168)
by Robert M. O'Neil. 257 pgs.
Higher Education in American Society (Chap. 2 "Academic Freedom in Delocalized Academic Institutions")
by Philip G. Altbach, Robert O. Berdahl. 384 pgs.
The Year of the Oath: The Fight for Academic Freedom at the University of California
by George R. Stewart. 156 pgs.
Academic Freedom Takes a Hit, in NEA Today
by Michael D. Simpson. 1 pgs.
The Divided Academy: Professors and Politics
by Everett Carll Ladd Jr., Seymour Martin Lipset, Nancy Tressel, Janine Parson, Audre Hanneman. 376 pgs.
There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It's a Good Thing, Too
by Stanley Fish. 338 pgs.
Liberating Education
by Zelda F. Gamson. 262 pgs.
Education Still under Siege
by Stanley Aronowitz, Henry A. Giroux, Paulo Freire. 248 pgs.
Academic Freedom in the State of Israel, in Tikkun
by Jacob Neusner. 2 pgs.
Academic Freedom in Serbia, in Contemporary Review
by Joseph Saunders. 4 pgs.
Freedom and the University
by Edgar N. Johnson, Robert D. Calkins, Eugene V. Rostow, Joseph L. Lilienthal, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Edward C. Kirkland. 129 pgs.

A thoughtful piece

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 15:42:57 GMT

An Adjunct English instructor at The College of St. Scholastica, Sharon Mollerus, has cogent thoughts regarding the Academic Bill of Rights -- focus on two things -- how this affects teaching students critical thinking skills and who decides what "balance" is.

Academic Freedom in Colleges. Clairity's Place 0 links
... an Academic Bill of Rights which is designed to force colleges to hire on the basis of competence rather than political correctness and to ensure diversity of opinions. Academic freedom is called...by Sharon Mollerus There is a new movement (Students for Academic Freedom) on the part ... [[Technorati] academic rights]

Balancing Diversity in the New Religious Centric University

Fri, 07 Jan 2005 14:00:10 GMT

If, as Prof. Fish predicts, religion will become the center of intellectual activity in Universities, then the debate for whether government should determine violations of academic freedom takes on holy (sic) new dimensions, no?

One University Under God?. What will succeed high theory and race, gender, and class as the center of intellectual energy in academe? Religion, says Stanley Fish. (free) [Chronicle.com - Today's News]

Thu, 06 Jan 2005 15:49:11 GMT

Will writes a good column ...

The Mind That Changed the World. One hundred years ago a minor Swiss civil servant, having traveled home in a streetcar from his job in the Bern patent office, wondered: What would the city's clock tower look like if observed from a streetcar racing away from the tower at the speed of light? The clock, he decided, would appear stopped because light could not catch up to the streetcar, but his own watch would tick normally. By George F. Will. [washingtonpost.com - Op-Eds]

...Einstein's theism, such as it was, was his faith that God does not play dice with the universe -- that there are elegant, eventually discoverable laws, not randomness, at work. Saying "I'm not an atheist," he explained:

"We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn't know what it is."

...

Conservative Reaction to Request for New Law

Wed, 29 Dec 2004 15:06:34 GMT

The folks in Indiana don't seem to care for the idea of providing affirmative action for "conservatives" in higher education -- for example, an editorial in the Chronicle Tribune in Grant County, Indiana opines:

...Now, if some liberal group were lobbying for some kind of liberal-protection law, conservatives - after they stopped laughing - would rightfully raise a ruckus and demand that the demand be ignored. And Hoosier legislators - after they stop laughing - should show the Students for Academic Freedom the door. Quickly.
Of all people, conservatives should know better. Conservatives, if they truly believe in the principles of the cause, do not want more unnecessary laws. They want fewer of them.

The Indianapolis Star argues:

... Do conservative students, especially religious conservatives, often feel slighted, ridiculed and harassed on campus? Without a doubt.

But state and federal laws already exist to address the problem through legal means, if that's what it takes.

The better solution is for universities to create an environment in which conservatives and liberals, the religious and non-religious, feel welcome. That requires professors, students and administrators who possess enough intellectual honesty, curiosity and courage to tolerate people of all political, social and religious beliefs. Passing another law isn't the path conservatives should follow to achieve acceptance.

And, Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen shows they haven't forgotten about attempts to pass a law there last year.