Academic Freedom & State Schools

Academic freedom is treated as more than the right to make claims. It is expected to cover broad protections such as selecting books and developing curriculum. It is also meant to shield professors, especially tenured faculty, from being unjustly fired or punished for expressing their views. Academic freedom is not absolute and can involve consequences. Accusations exist that political groups restrict academic freedom, including cases where faculty faced promotion denial tied to political engagement. Proposals such as replacing academic freedom with “academic justice” and adding ideological tests raised concerns that research would be limited by an imposed definition of justice. Trigger warnings were also criticized as potentially undermining freedom. State-funded institutions face additional constraints because state governments control funding and oversight.

"Academic freedom is usually taken as being more than merely the right to freely make specific claims in that it is supposed to provide broad protection in such matters as selecting books, developing curriculum and so on. It is also supposed to protect professors (tenured professors at least) from being unjustly fired or punished for expressing their views. It is, of course, not a license to act without consequences."

"While defending academic freedom is often seen as leftist, conservatives have accused the left of restricting the academic freedom of conservative thinkers. While this claim is often hyperbole, there have been past incidents of faculty being punished for holding views that are regarded as politically incorrect. For example, Mike Adams was apparently once denied promotion to full professor based on his political engagement rather than a lack of qualifications."

"There were past proposals to replace academic freedom with academic justice. While justice sounds good, the proposal was to substitute an ideological test in place of the general right. In short, academics could research what they wished, if it was consistent with the definition of "justice" in use. There were also proposals for trigger warnings, which also raised concerns about academic freedom."

"One specific problem of academic freedom arises for state colleges and universities. While even for-profit schools receive money from the government, state schools receive funding as decided by the state legislature. While academic institutes, they are subject to the control of the state government. Given that the state government is (in theory) acting in accord with the "will of the people" and that the schools are funded with state money, it is not unreasonable to believe that the state has the right to impose a degree of c"

Read at A Philosopher's Blog