VIOS, YUBERT REZ P.
LLB1A
Research on “Academic Freedom”
What is “Academic Freedom”?
Academic freedom is a the freedom of teachers and students to teach,
study, and pursue knowledge and research without unreasonable
interference or restriction from law, institutional regulations, or public
pressure. Its basic elements include the freedom of teachers to inquire into
any subject that evokes their intellectual concern; to present their findings
to their students, colleagues, and others; to publish their data and
conclusions without control or censorship; and to teach in the manner they
consider professionally appropriate. For students, the basic elements
include the freedom to study subjects that concern them and to form
conclusions for themselves and express their opinions.
According to its proponents, the justification for academic freedom
thus defined lies not in the comfort or convenience of teachers and students
but in the benefits to society; i.e., the long-term interests of a society are
best served when the educational process leads to the advancement of
knowledge, and knowledge is best advanced when inquiry is free from
restraints by the state, by the church or other institutions, or by
special-interest groups.
Academic freedom is the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by
faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the
principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or
communicate ideas or facts (including those that are inconvenient to
external political groups or to authorities) without being targeted for
repression, job loss, or imprisonment.
What does “academic freedom” do?
1. Academic freedom means that both faculty members and students can
engage in intellectual debate without fear of censorship or retaliation.
2. Academic freedom establishes a faculty member’s right to remain true
to his or her pedagogical philosophy and intellectual commitments. It
preserves the intellectual integrity of our educational system and thus
serves the public good.
3. Academic freedom in teaching means that both faculty members and
students can make comparisons and contrasts between subjects taught in a
course and any field of human knowledge or period of history.
4. Academic freedom gives both students and faculty the right to express
their views — in speech, writing, and through electronic communication,
both on and off campus — without fear of sanction, unless the manner of
expression substantially impairs the rights of others or, in the case of
faculty members, those views demonstrate that they are professionally
ignorant, incompetent, or dishonest with regard to their discipline or fields
of expertise.
5. Academic freedom gives both students and faculty the right to study and
do research on the topics they choose and to draw what conclusions they
find consistent with their research, though it does not prevent others from
judging whether their work is valuable and their conclusions sound. To
protect academic freedom, universities should oppose efforts by corporate
or government sponsors to block dissemination of any research findings.
6. Academic freedom means that the political, religious, or philosophical
beliefs of politicians, administrators, and members of the public cannot be
imposed on students or faculty.
7. Academic freedom gives faculty members and students the right to seek
redress or request a hearing if they believe their rights have been violated.
7. Academic freedom protects faculty members and students from
reprisals for disagreeing with administrative policies or proposals.
8. Academic freedom gives faculty members and students the right to
challenge one another’s views, but not to penalize them for holding them.
9. Academic freedom protects a faculty member’s authority to assign
grades to students, so long as the grades are not capricious or unjustly
punitive. More broadly, academic freedom encompasses both the
individual and institutional right to maintain academic standards.
10. Academic freedom gives faculty members substantial latitude in
deciding how to teach the courses for which they are responsible.
12. Academic freedom guarantees that serious charges against a faculty
member will be heard before a committee of his or her peers. It provides
faculty members the right to due process, including the assumption that the
burden of proof lies with those who brought the charges, that faculty have
the right to present counter-evidence and confront their accusers, and be
assisted by an attorney in serious cases if they choose.
What “academic freedom” does not do?
1. Academic freedom does not mean a faculty member can harass, threaten,
intimidate, ridicule, or impose his or her views on students.
2. Student academic freedom does not deny faculty members the right to
require students to master course material and the fundamentals of the
disciplines that faculty teach.
3. Neither academic freedom nor tenure protects an incompetent teacher
from losing his or her job. Academic freedom thus does not grant an
unqualified guarantee of lifetime employment.
4. Academic freedom does not protect faculty members from colleague or
student challenges to or disagreement with their educational philosophy
and practices.
5. Academic freedom does not protect faculty members from
non-university penalties if they break the law.
6. Academic freedom does not give students or faculty the right to ignore
college or university regulations, though it does give faculty and students
the right to criticize regulations they believe are unfair.
7. Academic freedom does not protect students or faculty from disciplinary
action, but it does require that they receive fair treatment and due process.
8. Academic freedom does not protect faculty members from sanctions for
professional misconduct, though sanctions require clear proof established
through due process.
9. Neither academic freedom nor tenure protects a faculty member from
various sanctions — from denial of merit raises, to denial of sabbatical
requests, to the loss of desirable teaching and committee assignments —
for poor performance, though such sanctions are regulated by local
agreements and by faculty handbooks. If minor, sanctions should be
grievable; if major, they must be preceded by an appropriate hearing.
10. Neither academic freedom nor tenure protects a faculty member who
repeatedly skips class or refuses to teach the classes or subject matter
assigned.
11. Though briefly interrupting an invited speaker may be compatible with
academic freedom, actually preventing a talk or a performance from
continuing is not.
12. Academic freedom does not protect a faculty member from
investigations into allegations of scientific misconduct or violations of
sound university policies, nor from appropriate penalties should such
charges be sustained in a hearing of record before an elected faculty body.
Rationale of “academic freedom”
Proponents of academic freedom believe that the freedom of inquiry by
students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy.
They argue that academic communities are repeatedly targeted for
repression due to their ability to shape and control the flow of information.
When scholars attempt to teach or communicate ideas or facts that are
inconvenient to external political groups or to authorities, they may find
themselves targeted for public vilification, job loss, imprisonment, or even
death. For example, in North Africa, a professor of public health
discovered that his country's infant mortality rate was higher than
government figures indicated. He lost his job and was imprisoned.
What in the Philippine law says about “academic freedom”?
Article XIV, Section 5 of the Constitution of the Philippines
states, "Academic freedom shall be enjoyed in all institutions of higher
learning." Academic freedom as explained by Friedrich Paulsen in the
book The German Universities and University Study is about scholars
having the freedom to teach and research, "For the academic teacher and
his hearers there can be no prescribed and no proscribed thoughts. There is
only one rule for instruction: to justify the truth of one's teaching by reason
and the facts." Thus, when the curriculum for higher education is dictated
by an authority external to the faculty, it is a clear infringement of
academic freedom. The Constitution of the Philippines does require one
course to be taught as it states in Article XIV, Section 3, "All educational
institutions shall include the study of the Constitution as part of the
curricula."
In the Philippines, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED)
defines what courses should be in the General Education Curriculum in
Higher Education. And recently, CHED has ordered colleges in the
Philippines to retain the teaching of Filipino.
What is the purpose of “academic freedom”?
The principle of academic freedom is derived from the notion of
freedom of thought, which is a basic human right. Academic freedom
therefore implies the freedom to teach and the freedom to learn, both of
which are central to the proper functioning and purpose of higher
education and democracy. Given its centrality, academic freedom is
widely protected by institutional policies and rules, by collective
bargaining agreements and by a long history of academic custom and
tradition.
Is “academic freedom” absolute?
It is not absolute and it is not the simple equivalent of “freedom of
speech.” All citizens have, or should have, the latter, but only individuals
who have specified educational and professional qualifications are entitled
to academic freedom within universities. In other words, they are granted
the “freedom to teach and discuss; freedom to carry out research and
disseminate and publish the results thereof; freedom to produce and
perform creative works; freedom to engage in service to the institution and
the community; freedom to express one’s opinion about the institution, its
administration, and the system in which one works.”
This may seem relatively straightforward but there are and have
always been constraints on an academic’s freedom and autonomy, some
justifiable and some not. Scholars in medieval Europe were encouraged
to engage in intellectual “disputations” so long as they did not challenge
the authority of the Catholic Church. Following the Reformation,
Protestant universities broadened the scope of religious study, but they
would not hire non-Christians or women to their faculties. Through to the
1960s, Canadian professors who criticized their universities’ presidents,
board members, or prevailing governments risked dismissal. There were
numerous cases of academic repression during the McCarthy era. The
protocols on academic freedom of the American Association of
University Professors (AAUP), like those of the CAUT, arose from
campaigns designed to end permanently such politically fraught actions.
Academic freedom is still limited by values and practices that are
entirely defensible. Professors cannot simply teach anything they want.
Courses must be vetted and approved by departmental committees
composed of one’s colleagues, and to get one’s course on the books a
professor may have to alter the content. Furthermore, to satisfy student or
programmatic needs, faculty may be compelled to teach courses they
would rather not.
Is “academic freedom” a human right?
Although the term “academic freedom” does not expressly appear in
these documents, much of the meaning of academic freedom is covered by
the protections included in these instruments. These include, for example,
protections for the freedom of opinion, expression and belief (ICCPR Art.
19); the right to education (ICESCR Art. 26); or the right to freedom from
discrimination based on age, gender, religion, race, or other grounds
(UNESCO, Convention against Discrimination in Education (1960)).
