Academic Freedom

 

Academic freedom is not just a nice job perk. It is the philosophical key to the whole enterprise of higher education.

 

- Louis Menand

It is important for the University of Colorado Boulder community to have common understandings of academic freedom—what it is, how it applies to faculty, how it applies to students, and what our rights and responsibilities are according to its tenets. Translation of these common understandings to our professional lives is critical to our ability to successfully and meaningfully engage in our scholarly and pedagogical practices. Our campus community engages in conversations about academic freedom supported by Regent Law (Article 5 and Article 7), and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure.

One reason academic freedom is important is because faculty, students and staff engage with diverse constituents who come to CU Boulder with many different social and political values and beliefs. We need to do so responsibly, inclusively, and with integrity, providing clear justifications of the ethical choice to champion the value of open exchange alongside the value of truth. Valuing freedom does not have to come at the expense of students’ and faculty’s pursuit of knowledge and truth, a—some might say the—fundamental purpose of higher education.

Definition

Academic freedom is a professional code that is in place in higher education in general and at CU Boulder in particular to protect faculty members’ ability to teach and perform their scholarly, creative and research activities in the highest manner of professionalism and integrity. It is also in place to protect students’ ability to learn and to engage in inquiry and discussion in the classroom and related educational spaces. Under the principles of academic freedom, discourse and inquiry are limited only by the established disciplinary standards for knowledge production.

Academic freedom has two key facets: 1) the rights afforded to faculty members to create and disseminate knowledge and seek truth, subject to the standards of their disciplines and the rational methods by which truth is established; and 2) the responsibilities they have to uphold the highest standards of evidence and inclusion. Academic freedom also supports the rights and responsibilities of students to pursue their studies and to formulate their own views on the matters being taught, subject to the academic requirements and disciplinary standards within a program of study or course.

The idea of academic freedom in the university was defined by the Association of American University Professors as comprising the following central tenets:

  1. Teachers are entitled to freedom in research and creative activities and in the publication and display of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties.
  2. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, and they are responsible for exercising care to not introduce into their teaching controversial or irrelevant matter that has no relation to their subject.
  3. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and employees of an educational institution; they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should understand their special obligations as such (AAUP, 1940, excerpted from p. 14).

Frequently Asked Questions

For faculty members, academic freedom attaches to research and teaching. The Laws of the Regents broadly define academic freedom as the “freedom to study, learn, and conduct scholarship and creative work within their discipline, and to communicate the results of these pursuits to others, bound only by the control and authority of the rational methods by which knowledge is established in the field.” This definition embraces academic debate as the means to advance knowledge and embraces the “fullest exposure to conflicting opinions” limited only by disciplinary standards and evidence.

Academic freedom requires that faculty members not be subjected to direct or indirect pressures in an attempt to influence their work in a manner that would conflict with professional standards of the field. The Board of Regents and administration shall not impose such pressures or influence and shall resist such pressures or interference when exerted from outside the university. Notably, the appointment, reappointment, promotion of all faculty, and award of tenure to tenure-track faculty, shall not be awarded or denied based on extrinsic considerations such as a faculty member’s expression of political, social or religious views.

Faculty members have the responsibility to maintain competence; to devote themselves to developing and improving their teaching, scholarship, research, creative work, clinical activities, writing and speaking; and to act with integrity, in accordance with the highest standards of their profession. Faculty members are responsible for requirements (e.g., course content, topic order, course schedule, assessment mechanisms) specified by responsible faculty bodies, such as curriculum committees. Faculty members should be able to justify, in terms of evidence, curriculum and student learning, all materials introduced into the classroom. In order for faculty members to practice academic freedom in its fullest sense, they have a responsibility to conduct their scholarship and pedagogy in an inclusive manner.

Finally, it’s important to note that academic freedom does not protect improper, exclusionary, or unethical conduct. All members of the university community remain subject to the standards of ethical conduct stated in the Laws of the Regents and regent policy, as well as Administrative Policy Statements and campus policies, such as the Professional Rights and Duties of Faculty Members.

Academic freedom also protects students. While faculty have the right to establish classroom procedures to ensure orderly discussion and progress towards the goals of a class, students have the freedom to raise questions and express reasoned opinions on the matters being discussed. Students also have the ability to discuss matters related to their courses with faculty during office hours and take reasoned exception to the views or methods offered in any course of study. Following the AAUP (1967) Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students, academic freedom for students stipulates that professors and instructors should foster and support free inquiry and discussion in class and in related educational spaces. Students should be evaluated solely on academic performance, which shall be assessed according to the published requirements established by the instructor or academic unit. If students believe their academic freedom rights have been violated, the campus will investigate complaints and remediate confirmed violations.

But it’s always important to remember that the instructor has the right to determine the standards of scholarship for a class.

The university and its faculty establish the standards of academic performance for students who are enrolled in their classes. A student who enrolls in a course is responsible for meeting those standards of performance, and academic freedom does not allow a student to avoid the course requirements or fail to meet standards of academic performance, even if the student disagrees with those requirements or standards.

Students are also responsible for maintaining the integrity of the academic environment. The instructor for each course has the ability to establish standards of conduct and reasonable procedures for classroom discussion. Academic freedom does not provide students with the right to disrupt the class, disregard the classroom procedures for discussion, or to raise discussions that are unrelated to the topic of the class or course. CU Boulder is committed to educating its students to solve complex problems, think critically about a diverse world, and endeavor to contribute to the public good. Such important capacities must always be informed by evidence, knowledge, and inquiry.

An important part of a clear understanding of academic freedom is the idea of standards. There are scholarly and scientific standards in the academic disciplines and creative fields that demarcate the content that is protected by academic freedom, and how. For example, standards in the art world, academic and otherwise, accommodate the exhibit of potentially controversial or offensive materials. In order to allow for the full consideration and expression of those materials, disciplinary norms establish appropriate placement and signage to go along with the art. In other disciplines and fields, potentially controversial or offensive content is evaluated based on rigorous standards of science, scholarly inquiry, and knowledge production. New ideas can be controversial or questionable and politics can intrude in the knowledge production endeavor. Ultimately, the university relies on inquiry, research, evidence, and critique to evaluate truth claims based on established disciplinary standards. CU Boulder thus encourages minority or unpopular viewpoints. The key is that—in the classroom and other education spaces—those viewpoints and truth claims need to be relevant to the subject and to course topics, and they need to emerge from relevant disciplinary standards for research, inquiry, and analysis. In addition, faculty should teach their disciplinary standards to students explicitly so that students can learn to appreciate the value of academic freedom for education, teaching and learning. Key parts of the University of Colorado’s mission and guiding principles—“excellence,” “teaching, learning and academic culture,” and “the pursuit of truth and learning”—require us to uphold both freedom of speech and the truth. Learn more about the mission of the University of Colorado. 

The concepts of free speech and academic freedom are distinctly different, and both have been treated in great depth for well over 100 years, making any attempt at a short description at risk of oversimplification. That said, as described in the Laws of the Regents, expression in research and teaching is protected by and subject to the Laws of the Regents and other policies defining academic freedom, while speech that occurs outside of employment or study is protected as freedom of expression.

Another fundamental difference that distinguishes academic freedom from general freedom of expression is the concept of and search for the truth, and the disciplinary bounds in which scholarship occurs. Academic freedom, in general terms, is the right afforded to faculty members to create and disseminate knowledge and seek truth, subject to the standards of their disciplines and the rational methods by which truth is established. Academic freedom also protects the rights of students to pursue their studies and to formulate their own views on the matters being taught, subject to the academic requirements within a program of study or course.