ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND FACULTY STATUS

In: Commentary, Band 22, Heft 2, S. 131-139

Abstract

We can value academic freedom (AF) not only because it is a necessary condition for the pursuit of truth, but also because it is a necessary condition for the enterprise of teaching, which involves much more than the transmission of knowledge. There is no question about whether a teacher should have AF. The question is who should teach. A teacher's qualifications are not to be judged solely by his scholarship & teaching, but also by his effect on S's. It is necessary that AF be believed in by the people for whom it is claimed, otherwise they will destroy us when they can. Of the 3 conditions for maximizing the discovery of knowledge & the teaching of it (AF, motivating people of talent to teach in Coll's & U's, & drawing faculty members from the largest possible group) AF is the one least frequently violated & the one with the most negligible effect on academic life, on the influence of the U on the rest of society, & on the pursuit of truth. The emphasis on AF is in part a result of the lack of concern for educ so common among professors. The overestimation of the threat to AF today is an unwitting diversion of attention from the more urgent academic problems of our time: the Coll & its relations to the graduate Sch, S motivation, the channels of academic advancement, faculty-admin relations, etc. J. A. Fishman.