News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education
Dec. 22, 2006
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Loyal Reader, On a philosophical level , I agree that there really is never such thing as “complete freedom of speech.” In fact, I don’t think that there is complete freedom of anything.
On a more practical level, the free speech debates in England are much different than they are in the US. In short: England does not have a First Amendment. England does not have the same tradition of letting all sorts of wacky ideas flourish. Therefore, I think that a demand for “complete” academic freedom needs to be looked at not in the context of American academics demanding something in the context of the First Amendment, but as what it is: British academics fighting a political battle.
As probably both of us know, it is very difficult to distinguish between a political viewpoint and an academic theory. The past 100 years have seen scientists change their position to conform with politics, and politicians change their positions to conform with ‘science.’ And this is the “hard” sciences. In fields like law, what once was a radical position becomes such a standard belief about the nature of the constitution and the nature of the proper relationship between the state and the individual, that it is tested on the bar. This occurs in less than a lifetime, and usually within the span of a career.
Larry88@mailinator.com, at 1:15 pm EST on December 22, 2006
It is a sad fact that the professoriate has its share of nutjobs and unreal whackos. Intelligence has nothing to do with it. To let these guys harangue a captive class with things like holocaust denial, 9/11 conspiracy theories, creation science etc simply shows that the academy is a little short on self preservation instincts and a lot short on ethical responsibility.
Howard, Prof, at 3:15 pm EST on December 22, 2006
To Loysal Reader: At the university at which I teach, there are no children, impressionable or otherwise. There are young adult students whose minds, I hope, are open to new, different and challenging ideas. Part of the problem with some students’ parents, is that they still see them as they were at nursery school, very impressionable and about to be manipulated by evil professors with their (shudder) “academic freedom". Parents these days, more than ever before, call university administrators about their “children’s” curricula, grades, professors’ teachings, and so on. Their interference results in calls to department chairs, college deans, and, very often, the provosts and presidents. Just like they no doubt did in school. Let go people — you survived worse — and so too will your “children” survive.
Manny, at 3:16 pm EST on December 22, 2006
“A person doesn’t get “complete freedom of speech” at any other job; why would it be given to those who teach at universities? I would not want an impressionable child being taught by a professor who has the “right” to manipulate and impose his/her views. A professor should teach discovery — the unbiased presentation of different views. This whole topic of teachers thinking they can use their position to flaunt their ideals just because they have a captive (literally) audience is absurd!"Well, perhaps people should have free speech at other jobs (in fact much management science is leading to the idea that more free speech helps, rather than harms, an organization). But I imagine one good reason why, of all places, a university should give it to its employees is that free examination of ideas is the best way of finding truth (or what you may call discovery). I wonder where this Loyal Reader would draw the line in classifying some ideas as prohibited because they are nonsense and others as still ‘in play.’ Why not let trained professionals put forward what they will and let the climate of reason and the marketplace of ideas ferret the nonsense from the sense. That climate has helped lead to the unprecedented scientific discovery of the past half century in academe, while the old dogmatic approach which was firmly in place during, say, the Dark Ages, turned out to dampen discover quite a bit, didn’t it? This is not to say that teachers should use their time to indoctrinate others in their political beliefs (they should not, and hopefully such people should have hard times getting PhD.’s and jobs), but the solution is not to let administrators indocrtrinate (by declaring some ideas off limits before hand) either. I think Loyal Reader’s real argument could be distilled to “Me no like what he say, arrgh he should no be allowed to say it!!!” Thank goodness for the sense of those who protested the conference attendee by publicly rebuking his silliness but calling for no institutional policies which would harm academic freedom.
Ken, at 5:00 pm EST on December 23, 2006
I like the approach the faculty have taken, They are engaging in a public debate that does not attempt to censor others’ speech.College students are not impressionable children, they are adults. All professors bring their perspectives to the table, as do all other kinds of humans with jobs or brains. Smart humans take this into account when analysing others’ research AND opinions.
MD, at 10:15 am EST on December 24, 2006
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A person doesn’t get “complete freedom of speech” at any other job; why would it be given to those who teach at universities? I would not want an impressionable child being taught by a professor who has the “right” to manipulate and impose his/her views. A professor should teach discovery — the unbiased presentation of different views. This whole topic of teachers thinking they can use their position to flaunt their ideals just because they have a captive (literally) audience is absurd!
Loyal Reader, at 9:50 am EST on December 22, 2006