In a bizarre, almost laughable verdict, a jury recently found in favor of Ward Churchill, the former Colorado University professor and head of the school’s Ethnic Studies Department. Churchill had been terminated by the university after an investigation found that he was guilty of academic fraud and plagiarism.
Churchill did not deny the findings of the committee that examined his academic record and found it blatantly false and deceptive. Instead, he argued that the university had wrongly ousted him because of the reason it was looking at his record.
That reason was his infamous statement in an essay that the people killed in the World Trade Center on September 11 were “little Eichmanns” who were complicit in vague crimes against humanity. Only after that essay came to light and aroused indignation did anyone think about carefully examining Churchill’s record. Therefore, he contended, he was actually fired because of what he wrote—thus his firing was a violation of his right to academic freedom.
That and several other, less famous cases have put the concept of academic freedom under the microscope. Just what does it mean? How far does it extend? Who has it: professors? Students? Educational institutions?
A timely paper just released by the Pope Center addresses those questions. The paper is Academic Freedom: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and How to Tell the Difference by University of Wisconsin professor Donald A. Downs. Professor Downs has a long association with the issues of academic freedom and free speech and authored the book Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus. (See my review here.)
Getting the meaning and boundaries of academic freedom right has always been important but never more so than at the current time. As Downs writes, “The contemporary university… is torn by a cultural clash between traditional notions of individual freedom and recently emergent ideologies that stress the need to be sensitive and caring, especially toward members of historically oppressed groups.” That clash is like the earth’s plate tectonics, resulting in stresses and strains that sometimes lead to the academic equivalent of volcanic eruptions.
For example, Downs takes up the problem that arises when professors choose to assign their students readings that appear to be motivated more by a desire to indoctrinate than to educate. Does academic freedom protect their choices? If not always, then how should we draw the line?
He points to a controversy that raged at Wellesley College several years ago. A professor of Africana Studies had his students read a work of extremely dubious scholarship that made historical claims that were not only demonstrably false, but also of a racially inflammatory nature. Does academic freedom extend that far?
Downs is a cautious writer and he hesitates to make sweeping, black-or-white pronouncements. He is reluctant to endorse giving other faculty members or administrators veto power over book selections, fearing that such power would be abused. So he contends that the presumption should be strongly in favor of the professor’s choice, but that presumption can be overcome, and when it is, school administrators should step in. They should do so, for example, if an erroneous book is being used not as an example of bad scholarship, but to teach falsehoods as truth.
That is to say, academic freedom must not be allowed to serve as cover for academic irresponsibility. Unfortunately, it is often used that way.
Wellesley should have stepped in to deal with unprofessional conduct, Downs believes, but it didn’t.
Another of those clash fronts is where the professor’s freedom to say what he thinks is relevant in class collides with students’ claimed right not to be “harassed.” These days, “harassment” can mean as little as “that statement hurt my feelings,” but that isn’t a reason to dismiss out of hand all student protests against comments made by professors. Downs shows, again, that there is a lot of gray area where the boundaries are not distinct.
Suppose that a professor says something to ridicule a student—for example, making fun of Catholicism in front of a student who wears a cross in class. If that happens once and the student complains, should the school step in? And if so, what action is appropriate?
Downs counsels for “breathing space” for professors in the classroom. A single instance like that should not be met with harsh sanctions, although schools have the right to ask faculty members to desist from making pointed, sarcastic comments that have nothing to do with the subject matter of the class. On the other hand, professors shouldn’t use “academic freedom” as a cover for repeated comments that annoy one or more of the students.
Now change the situation. The professor makes a statement in class that is relevant to the subject matter of the course, but a student says he finds it offensive. That occurs frequently in a country where people are constantly told (often by professors) that as members of various societal groups, they have a “right” not to be offended. Charges of “insensitivity” or “discrimination” are increasingly common.
One such case occurred at the University of Nevada—Las Vegas. An economics professor was discussing the concept of time preference and remarked that gays might tend to have a higher rate of time preference (that is, they value present consumption more than saving for future consumption) due to the fact that they usually don’t have children. A gay student complained to the university that he felt hurt by the professor’s comment, even though the professor had not meant it in a derogatory way.
The university responded with an outburst against the professor. He was compelled to appear before a disciplinary committee to defend himself and was found guilty of violating the university’s code of conduct. (You can read more about the case here.) Downs regards the action against the professor (which the university eventually dropped under fierce criticism that it had overreacted) to be a serious affront to academic freedom. Professors need to be free to discuss concepts and give illustrations without worrying that if some hypersensitive student takes offense, he’ll be hauled before a disciplinary board.
Professor Downs has not written a paper that will resolve all of the many disputes that arise with respect to academic freedom. That simply isn’t possible, precisely because of the many close calls and gray areas he elucidates. His paper does, however, give sound guidance as to the right questions to ask when academic freedom controversies erupt.