Abstract
Academic freedom is sometimes defined as the essence of university autonomy, but these are two different concepts. One is the freedom of the university as an institution, which is most frequently understood as the (relative) independence of the university from the state and economic powers like corporations, and the other is the freedom of the university professor, his freedom to research, teach, and publish. In this context, professors’ academic freedom is seen in close relation to the search for truth. However, such an understanding of academic freedom is now under challenge from postmodernist, relativist, and other critics. In addition, in the last three or four decades, both academic freedom and autonomy of universities have been considerably diminished in many countries because of the implementation of neoliberal politics whose consequences have been the increased demands for administrative control and accountability of universities.
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Notes
- 1.
The term ‘academic freedom’ is used in this sense mostly in Great Britain, while in the United States “it almost invariably refers to the freedom of the individual professor” (Dictionary of the History of Ideas. 2003, p. 10).
- 2.
This idea that the “freedom of the professor to teach is merely one side of the coin of academic freedom, the other side being the freedom of the student to learn”, is German in origin. During the half century preceding the First World War, a close affinity between freedom to teach (Lehrfreiheit) and freedom to learn (Lernfreiheit) was recognized. In this context, the students’ freedom to learn means that students are free to pursue their own course of study, taking whatever courses they like at whatever university they choose (Dictionary of the History of Ideas, p. 11). However, although the term ‘academic freedom’ is here used to denote both indicated freedoms, it is obvious that freedom of the university professor to teach and freedom of students to learn (to choose their courses) are two different kinds of freedom. R. Standler also claims that “it is important to recognize that students do not have academic freedom in either Germany or the USA. Students are on campus to learn, not to create new knowledge. Even in the case of graduate students who are doing research for their dissertations, the topic and methods are approved and periodically reviewed by professors, which is a level of supervision that would be inappropriate for a professor’s research. Students are not colleagues of professors” (Standler 2000). According to Standler, academic freedom applies only to university professors. Since it applies only to academics, it does not apply either to students or to teachers in elementary and high schools (ibid.), albeit in the USA, academic freedom has sometimes been claimed by high school teachers and students. However, in Germany it is “possible for a school teacher, and even conceivably a school student, to assert Wissenschaftsfreiheit (scientific rather than academic freedom). For that right can be claimed by anyone engaged in serious scholarly research and study; it is not confined to academic staff working in universities or other higher education institutions. But it has rarely been claimed outside the context of higher education” (Barendt 2010, pp. 13–14).
- 3.
Since such interpretations of academic freedom usually include the classical conceptions of truth – as it is defined in the correspondence, coherence, verificationist, or pragmatist theories of truth – they might be problematic for those who favor so-called minimalist (Wright, Putnam, Horwich) or deflationist conceptions of truth (Tarski, Rorty, Nietzsche, Heidegger) and consequently reject the idea of truth as ‘substantive’ metaphysical notion (Engel 2002). Academic freedom understood as a ‘disinterested search for truth’ seems to be problematic also for the defenders of postmodernist views who, like Foucault, think that behind the talk about the disinterested search for truth “lies a will to power, an ideological bias that hides other aims that are all but disinterested” (ibid., p. 2), as well as “that the traditional idea that there could be one true story about the word is not only wrong but obnoxious” (ibid.).
- 4.
This formulation of university autonomy has had an impact also on the understanding of this autonomy outside the USA. Moreover, it was directly included in the Statement on Academic Freedom, Ch. 3.
- 5.
“Higher-education teaching personnel have the right to teach without any interference, subject to accepted professional principles including professional responsibility and intellectual rigour with regard to standards and methods of teaching. Higher-education teaching personnel should not be forced to instruct against their own best knowledge and conscience or be forced to use curricula and methods contrary to national and international human rights standards. Higher-education teaching personnel should play a significant role in determining the curriculum” (UNESCO 1997, point 28). However, the widely accepted claim that university professors should not be forced to teach against their conscience is open to question. An example which shows that this claim is not as unproblematic as it seems to be at first glance is the case of a university professor who argues that the requirement of following a human rights code which gives a specific right to the students violates his rights to freedom of conscience, academic freedom, and freedom of speech. It is well known that Jordan Peterson, a professor at the University of Toronto, generated international controversy in 2016 with his public refusal to use gender-neutral pronouns (like ‘they’ or ‘ze’ and ‘zir’, instead of ‘she’ or ‘he’) when referring to transgendered students, in the name of his right to freedom of speech. The critics claim that his rights to academic freedom and free speech are not unlimited and that his refusal is contrary to the rights of those students (guaranteed by Canadian human rights legislation) to equal treatment without discrimination based on their gender identity or expression. On the other hand, his supporters argue that forcing university professors to speak in a particular way does not mean only the infringement of their right to freedom of speech but also to force them to act against their conscience. Since no one should be forced to act contrary to his conscience or be prevented from acting according to his conscience, it follows that also the university professors should have the freedom to act according to their conscience although legal obligations demand otherwise. Therefore, these opposing interpretations (based on good reasons for mutually exclusive alternatives) show that the discussed problem presents a moral dilemma which cannot be resolved without the violation of either the rights of university professors or those of transgendered students.
- 6.
“Autonomy is the institutional form of academic freedom and a necessary precondition to guarantee the proper fulfilment of the functions entrusted to higher-education teaching personnel and institutions” (UNESCO 1997, point 18).
- 7.
Finally, academic freedom is not to be identified with university autonomy. Universities are autonomous to the extent that they can set their internal policies with independence from outside influence. Whether they respect academic freedom depends on the character of the policies they set. In practice, university autonomy stands in the same ambiguous relation to academic freedom as national sovereignty stands with respect to human rights: sometimes it protects it from a hostile external environment; sometimes it merely facilitates internal assaults (Green 2003, p. 385).
- 8.
Such an interpretation is, for instance, included in the argument used in response to the criticism that the draft of the Slovene Higher Education and Research and Development Activities Act (2007) reduces the autonomy of the state universities. For, the official argument has been that the draft act does not reduce university autonomy because it guarantees the autonomy of university professors, which is, in essence, the same as institutional autonomy. Just the opposite interpretation of academic freedom, which reduces academic freedom to university autonomy, we can find in the decision of the Federal Court in Virginia when it “ruled that professors have no academic freedom; all academic freedom resides with the university”.
- 9.
The result of the fight of the medieval universities for their independence was that they became to a considerable extent autonomous institutions, that is, legally self-governing corporations, protected by royal charters or papal bulls. They had the freedom to appoint their own professors, control admissions, and establish their own organization of study and standards for graduation (Le Goff 1985, pp. 73–133).
- 10.
Academic research cannot be unlimited because it mostly depends on money which “plays a crucial role in deciding whether a particular problem will be studied, who will study it, how it will be studied, and even whether the results will be published” (Shamoo and Resnik 2009, pp. 5–6). Especially when research is financed by private funds, “the main reason for investing money in research” is “the prospect of profit” (ibid., p. 6) and not to do research for its own sake.
- 11.
Among the principles for ethical conduct in research are, for instance, honesty, objectivity, openness, trust, confidentiality, respect for research subjects, social responsibility, and so on (ibid., p. 28–29). Such ethical principles not only restrict academic freedom but also protect it because they prove to the public that research – conducted in accordance with ethical principles – is trustworthy and accountable.
- 12.
Nevertheless, the free search for truth as the aim of academic freedom is mostly related to the research that university professors do simply because a new truth must be discovered first, and only after that can it be published or involved in teaching. Moreover, university professors can publish texts which do not include new truths and their teaching is quite often nothing more than the transmission of certain old and widely accepted truths. In this context, the search for truth has been understood neither as a search for a religious, revealed truth nor “for an ultimate truth for all time, but a contestable truth that could be countered and superseded when new and better knowledge was proposed” (Williams 2016, p. 14).
- 13.
But such an understanding of academic freedom (which presupposes the idea that freedom of university professors is a necessary condition for discovering objective truth) is now under challenge because “the very possibility of objective truth is itself under challenge” from the postmodernist, relativist and other critics (Dworkin 1996, p. 183). One of the consequences of these critics was “the collapse of truth within humanities and social science disciplines”, which began a few decades ago and “had a devastating and enduring impact upon the pursuit and transmission of knowledge and the meaning and purpose of academic freedom” (Williams 2016, p. 46).
- 14.
Mill’s main arguments for preserving freedom of speech can be summarized as: (1) If any opinion is suppressed, the suppressed opinion might be true. To deny this is the same as assuming our own infallibility. (2) Even if the suppressed opinion is false, it may contain an element of truth. Since the general opinion is rarely if ever the whole truth, the only way of finding the missing true element, which can supply the whole truth, is to permit the false opinions to be heard. (3) Even if the prevailing opinion is the whole truth, if it is not permitted to be questioned, it will be the prejudice, that is, a belief without a rational ground (Mill 1985, pp. 115–116).
- 15.
University professors “should be free to publish the results of research and scholarship in books, journals and databases of their own choice and under their own names, provided they are the authors or co-authors of the above scholarly works” (UNESCO 1997, point 12).
- 16.
The Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, for example, stipulates that the exercise of the right to freedom of expression “may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interest of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary” (Art. 10.2).
- 17.
The answer to this question can be either negative or affirmative, depending on the chosen ethical approach. For a nonconsequentialist, who thinks that it is wrong in itself to not tell the truth (not publish something that a professor believes to be true and important for academics or the general public), the answer is negative. For a consequentialist, who thinks that professors should not publish such things if this has better consequences than there would be if they published them, the answer is affirmative. However, if a greater harm is done by not publishing, then professors, who in spite of this greater harm do not publish them (because this has better consequences for themselves), should be judged as blameworthy. In this case, greater harm implies greater blame and vice versa. On the other hand, professors may be regarded as worthy of more blame for not publishing when the gravity of the harmful consequences that would befall the professors if they published is lesser. In this case, a lesser risk of harm implies greater blame. Therefore, professors are blameworthy in proportion to the gravity of the harm that is done by their acts.
- 18.
Dworkin also emphasizes that university professors have a moral duty to discover and tell what they believe to be the truth. In his opinion, “scholars exist for that, and only for that” (Dworkin 1996, p. 190).
- 19.
For him such cases are those “in which a person’s life prospects or a whole family’s material or physical security are at stake” (ibid., p. 11). But these extreme cases are the exceptions that prove the rule: professors ought to tell only what they believe to be the truth when they intervene in public. This is their moral duty. Looking from the deontological or nonconsequentialist perspective, they should not lie (say something they do not believe) because this is morally wrong in itself, and not just wrong because it has bad consequences (the harm done to the dignity of the status that professors have).
- 20.
Nevertheless, if such acts surpass what academic duty requires, then they should be treated as supererogatory acts, that is, as acts that it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. In this case, university professors are free to do such acts or to omit them. Consequently, professors are praiseworthy for committing these acts but not blameworthy for not committing them.
- 21.
Rawls defines disobedience as “a public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government” (Rawls 1971, p. 364).
- 22.
Much more controversial are those cases when university professors in the name of academic freedom – which in some countries, such as the USA, covers one part of a wider freedom of speech that all citizens enjoy – use hate speech that insults or offends members of some racial, ethnic, and religious groups or publish “particularly controversial or unacceptable opinions, say, on the intelligence of different ethnic groups or on the Holocaust” (Barendt 2010, p. 13). The problem is that although such misuse of freedom of speech seems to be morally unacceptable, it is not clear whether universities are entitled to discipline such “professors because they regard their speech” (articles in newspapers, blogs, etc.) – on issues of public concern outside their scientific disciplines and expertise – “as irresponsible and as damaging to university reputation or standing in the community” (ibid., p. 295). On the other hand, inside the university, universities are obligated to guarantee freedom of speech ‘within the law’, while “they can forbid a meeting if it is clear that the speaker is going to incite crime, infringe public order legislation, use threatening (or other) language intended or likely to cause racial or religious hatred, or in some other way to break the law” (ibid., 282).
- 23.
Cf. O. O’Neill 2015, pp. 109–117.
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Kodelja, Z. (2018). Academic Freedom, the University, and Public Accountability. In: Smeyers, P. (eds) International Handbook of Philosophy of Education. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-72761-5_89
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