Academic freedom
Is this thing on?
As universities respond to COVID-19, they must be guided by their core values of social responsibility, accountability and equitable access – all of which support suspending on-campus teaching and learning.
Two recent cases from the U.S. throw into sharp relief just how critical institutional autonomy is for academic freedom.
This definition was drawn up with great care by 33 countries, and with the usual negotiation and compromise common to all international agreements.
The definition adopted from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is alarmingly vague and easily misinterpreted.
Academic freedom is not merely a negotiated perk of being a professor, it is a sine qua non of the university’s mission.
Issues around gender identity, and transgender and nonbinary people have become a battleground for academic freedom and freedom of expression on campus.
At a panel discussion at Congress, three academics reflect on the challenges facing universities.
If no one listens, no ideas are exchanged. And to listen, one must be quiet.
To defend the values at the heart of the university, we must first understand them. Here’s a resource that can help.
A dissection of three talks presented at the recent Harry Crowe conference in Toronto.
Should there be a separate conception of academic freedom for precarious and independent scholars?
Because we most often invoke it when it’s threatened, we tend to focus more on the rights associated with academic freedom than on the reason we have it to begin with.
For reasons of naiveté or worse, the media and the public have been taken in by the view that there is a free speech crisis on campus.
Understanding what academic freedom is ideally meant to do can help us understand its contours, and how to best defend it.
If engaging with the public is indeed part of the job of the professor, then universities ought to protect professors who take up the task.
Clashes over the limits of free speech continue to divide students and faculty.
Most with a working knowledge of higher education would agree we are nowhere near a free speech crisis in colleges and universities, let alone one justifying government intervention.
A better understanding of the mission of universities, and of the role that academic freedom plays within that mission, puts us in a better position to support university scholars and the work that they do.
Translational research should be scientist-driven and institutionally supported, not the other way around.