Associating and Academic Freedom

  • Timothy Reese Cain
Chapter
Part of the Higher Education and Society book series (HES)

Abstract

Informed by his own trials and in direct response to Enoch Banks’s forced resignation from the University of Florida, Andrew Sledd warned in 1911 that academic freedom was a “vague … academic myth.”1 Fewer than five years later, it would be something much more: it would be a central element in efforts for and debates around faculty professionalization. The key events in this shift were the founding of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), its creation of Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, and its issuance of the 1915 Declaration of Principles of Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure. The establishment of the AAUP offered new opportunities for defining and protecting educators’ rights and signaled a new era in the long history of academic freedom, though an era in which academic freedom would remain highly contested. Importantly, this new association of professors, at times termed a “union” to the consternation of its leaders, was not alone. The proximal founding of the Association of American Colleges (AAC), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) provided additional opportunities for those interested in educational liberty to advocate competing visions of the principle. Over the next 25 years, their collaborations and competition changed American higher education and defined both the very idea of academic freedom and the policies that could be used to protect it.

Keywords

Academic Freedom Governing Board National Education Association American Civil Liberty Union Academic Tenure 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

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© Timothy Reese Cain 2012

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  • Timothy Reese Cain

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