Academic Bills of Rights
The statement that follows was approved for publication by the Association's
Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. Comments
are welcome and should be addressed to the AAUP's Washington office.
The past year has witnessed repeated efforts to establish what has been
called an "Academic Bill of Rights." Based upon data purporting
to show that Democrats greatly outnumber Republicans in faculty positions,
and citing official statements and principles of the American Association
of University Professors, advocates of the Academic Bill of Rights would
require universities to maintain political pluralism and diversity. This
requirement is said to enforce the principle that "no political,
ideological or religious orthodoxy should be imposed on professors and
researchers through the hiring or tenure or termination process."1
Although Committee A endorses this principle, which we shall call the
"principle of neutrality," it believes that the Academic Bill
of Rights is an improper and dangerous method for its implementation.
There are already mechanisms in place that protect this principle, and
they work well. Not only is the Academic Bill of Rights redundant, but,
ironically, it also infringes academic freedom in the very act of purporting
to protect it.
A fundamental premise of academic freedom is that decisions concerning
the quality of scholarship and teaching are to be made by reference to
the standards of the academic profession, as interpreted and applied by
the community of scholars who are qualified by expertise and training
to establish such standards. The proposed Academic Bill of Rights directs
universities to enact guidelines implementing the principle of neutrality,
in particular by requiring that colleges and universities appoint faculty
"with a view toward fostering a plurality of methodologies and perspectives."2
The danger of such guidelines is that they invite diversity
to be measured by political standards that diverge from the academic criteria
of the scholarly profession. Measured in this way, diversity can easily
become contradictory to academic ends. So, for example, no department
of political theory ought to be obligated to establish "a plurality
of methodologies and perspectives" by appointing a professor of Nazi
political philosophy, if that philosophy is not deemed a reasonable scholarly
option within the discipline of political theory. No department of chemistry
ought to be obligated to pursue "a plurality of methodologies and
perspectives" by appointing a professor who teaches the phlogiston
theory of heat, if that theory is not deemed a reasonable perspective
within the discipline of chemistry.
These examples illustrate that the appropriate diversity of a university
faculty must ultimately be conceived as a question of academic judgment,
to be determined by the quality and range of pluralism deemed reasonable
by relevant disciplinary standards, as interpreted and applied by college
and university faculty. Advocates for the Academic Bill of Rights, however,
make clear that they seek to enforce a kind of diversity that is instead
determined by essentially political categories, like the number of Republicans
or Democrats on a faculty, or the number of conservatives or liberals.
Because there is in fact little correlation between these political categories
and disciplinary standing, the assessment of faculty by such explicitly
political criteria, whether used by faculty, university administration,
or the state, would profoundly corrupt the academic integrity of universities.
Indeed, it would violate the neutrality principle itself. For this reason,
recent efforts to enact the Academic Bill of Rights pose a grave threat
to fundamental principles of academic freedom.
The Academic Bill of Rights also seeks to enforce the principle that
"faculty members will not use their courses or their position for
the purpose of political, ideological, religious, or antireligious indoctrination."3
Although Committee A endorses this principle, which we
shall call the nonindoctrination principle, the Academic Bill of Rights
is an inappropriate and dangerous means for its implementation. This is
because the bill seeks to distinguish indoctrination from appropriate
pedagogy by applying principles other than relevant scholarly standards,
as interpreted and applied by the academic profession.
If a professor of constitutional law reads the examination of a student
who contends that terrorist violence should be protected by the First
Amendment because of its symbolic message, the determination of whether
the examination should receive a high or a low grade must be made by reference
to the scholarly standards of the law. The application of these standards
properly distinguishes indoctrination from competent pedagogy. Similarly,
if a professor of American literature reads the examination of a student
that proposes a singular interpretation of Moby Dick, the determination
of whether the examination should receive a high or a low grade must be
made by reference to the scholarly standards of literary criticism. The
student has no "right" to be rewarded for an opinion of Moby
Dick that is independent of these scholarly standards. If students
possessed such rights, all knowledge would be reduced to opinion, and
education would be rendered superfluous.
The Academic Bill of Rights seeks to transfer responsibility for the
evaluation of student competence to college and university administrators
or to the courts, apparently on the premise that faculty ought to be stripped
of the authority to make such evaluative judgments. The bill justifies
this premise by reference to "the uncertainty and unsettled character
of all human knowledge."4 This
premise, however, is antithetical to the basic scholarly enterprise of
the university, which is to establish and transmit knowledge. Although
academic freedom rests on the principle that knowledge is mutable and
open to revision, an Academic Bill of Rights that reduces all knowledge
to uncertain and unsettled opinion, and which proclaims that all opinions
are equally valid, negates an essential function of university education.
Some versions of the Academic Bill of Rights imply that faculty ought
not to be trusted to exercise the pedagogical authority required to make
evaluative judgments. A bill proposing an Academic Bill of Rights recently
under discussion in Colorado, for example, provides:
The general assembly further declares that intellectual independence
means the protection of students as well as faculty from the imposition
of any orthodoxy of a political, religious or ideological nature. To
achieve the intellectual independence of students, teachers should not
take unfair advantage of a student's immaturity by indoctrinating him
with the teacher's own opinions before a student has had an opportunity
fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters in question, and before
a student has sufficient knowledge and ripeness of judgment to be entitled
to form any definitive opinion of his own, and students should be free
to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course
of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion.5
On the surface, this paragraph appears merely to restate important elements
of AAUP policy.6 In the context
of that policy, this paragraph unambiguously means that the line between
indoctrination and proper pedagogical authority is to be determined by
reference to scholarly and professional standards, as interpreted and
applied by the faculty itself. In the context of the proposed Colorado
Academic Bill of Rights, by contrast, this paragraph means that the line
between indoctrination and proper pedagogical authority is to be determined
by college and university administrations or by courts. This distinction
is fundamental.
A basic purpose of higher education is to endow students with the knowledge
and capacity to exercise responsible and independent judgment. Faculty
can fulfill this objective only if they possess the authority to guide
and instruct students. AAUP policies have long justified this authority
by reference to the scholarly expertise and professional training of faculty.
College and university professors exercise this authority every time they
grade or evaluate students. Although faculty would violate the indoctrination
principle were they to evaluate their students in ways not justified by
the scholarly and ethical standards of the profession, faculty could not
teach at all if they were utterly denied the ability to exercise this
authority.
The clear implication of AAUP policy, therefore, is that the question
whether it is indoctrination for teachers of biology to regard the theory
of "evolution" as an opinion about which students must be allowed
"to reserve judgment" can be answered only by those who are
expert in biology. The whole thrust of the proposed Colorado Academic
Bill of Rights, by contrast, is to express distrust of faculty capacity
to make such judgments, and to transfer the supervision of such determinations
to a college or university administration or to courts. The proposed Colorado
bill thus transforms decisions that should be grounded in professional
competence and expertise into decisions that are based upon managerial,
mechanical, or, even worse, overtly political criteria. The proposed Colorado
bill also facilitates the constant supervision of everyday pedagogic decision
making, a supervision that threatens altogether to undercut faculty authority
in the classroom. It thus portends incalculable damage to basic principles
of academic freedom.
Skepticism of professional knowledge, such as that which underlies the
Academic Bill of Rights, is deep and corrosive. This is well illustrated
by its requirement that "academic institutions . . . maintain a posture
of organizational neutrality with respect to the substantive disagreements
that divide researchers on questions within . . . their fields of inquiry."7
The implications of this requirement are truly breathtaking.
Academic institutions, from faculty in departments to research institutes,
perform their work precisely by making judgments of quality, which necessarily
require them to intervene in academic controversies. Only by making such
judgments of quality can academic institutions separate serious work from
mere opinion, responsible scholarship from mere polemic. Because the advancement
of knowledge depends upon the capacity to make judgments of quality, the
Academic Bill of Rights would prevent colleges and universities from achieving
their most fundamental mission.
When carefully analyzed, therefore, the Academic Bill of Rights undermines
the very academic freedom it claims to support. It threatens to impose
administrative and legislative oversight on the professional judgment
of faculty, to deprive professors of the authority necessary for teaching,
and to prohibit academic institutions from making the decisions that are
necessary for the advancement of knowledge. For these reasons Committee
A strongly condemns efforts to enact the Academic Bill of Rights.
The AAUP has consistently held that academic freedom can only be maintained
so long as faculty remain autonomous and self-governing. We do not mean
to imply, of course, that academic professionals never make mistakes or
act in improper or unethical ways. But the AAUP has long stood for the
proposition that violations of professional standards, like the principles
of neutrality or nonindoctrination, are best remedied by the supervision
of faculty peers. It is the responsibility of the professoriate, in cooperation
with administrative officers, to ensure compliance with professional standards.
By repudiating this basic concept, the Academic Bill of Rights alters
the meaning of the principles of neutrality and nonindoctrination in ways
that contradict academic freedom as it has been advanced in standards
and practices which the AAUP has long endorsed.
Endnotes
1. This language derives from a Concurrent Resolution
(H.Con.Res. 318) proposed in the House of Representatives by Jack Kingston
during the 108th Congress. It also appears in a proposed amendment to
Article I of Title 23 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, 24-125.5. Both
pieces of legislation grow out of a version of the Academic Bill of Rights
originally drafted by columnist David Horowitz. See http://studentsforacademicfreedom.org/.
Back to text.
2. H.Con.Res. 318. We note, parenthetically, that, while
this embrace of diversity may be reasonable in some circumstances, it
may make little academic sense in other contexts, as, for example, when
a department wishes to specialize in a particular disciplinary approach.
Back to text.
3. H.Con.Res. 318. Back to text.
4. H.Con.Res. 318. Back to text.
5. Proposed amendment to Article I of Title 23 of the
Colorado Revised Statutes, 24-125.5. Back to text.
6. "Some Observations on Ideology, Competence, and
Faculty Selections," Academe: Bulletin of the AAUP, (January-February
1986):1a-2a. Back to text.
7. H.Con.Res. 318. Back to text.
(Posted 12/03)