Dr Graham Downes Academic freedom: often used, not always understood; frequently contested, not always discussed; long history, chequered past.
Today the phrase 'academic freedom' is often used interchangeably with ‘freedom of speech’ but historically (and legally) they are not the same thing. Academic freedom actually refers to academics' ability to go about their work (teaching and research) free from interference. There are grey areas too: it is not clear whether this freedom extends to areas of life beyond an academic’s area of expertise. Does a clinical psychologist have a right to criticise a government’s involvement in foreign conflicts? Or, more pertinently, to criticise the fees set by their university? The 1988 Education Reform Act cleared up some of these issues and did explicitly state that academics do have the right to criticise their own institutions governance but almost no cases have come to light that challenge this, which further muddies the water in a case law system. I have mixed feelings about the concept of academic freedom, particularly in relation to issues of social justice. On the one hand it appears to be an important tool against an increasingly litigious and instrumental society where speaking differently to the dominant discourse seems to become more and more difficult - to speak truth to power if you will. This is particularly so in the field of social research where an increasing preoccupation with risk appears (anecdotally at least) to be pushing researchers away from difficult projects that may contain challenging messages for certain parties. On the other hand, academic freedom could be seen to provide a haven for those engaging in poor and bullying behaviour. A survey in early 2018 revealed the shocking level of sexism and harassment in universities internationally. And we should note that this behaviour appears to go largely unchallenged. The case of Avital Ronell is particularly prescient. An academic superstar, she was suspended by New York University for sexually harassing one of her postgraduate students. But far from her actions being opened up to critical examination, she was supported by a number of internationally established academics whose primary defence of her was her academic esteem. Somehow, a well-established academic profile appears to provide reason for immunity from everyday accusations of improper behaviour. These reflections lead me to an almost disconcertingly straightforward solution. Academic freedom is an important principle for those conducting research but I can see no good reason why academics should have an elevated legal status in their everyday lives, particularly in the classroom. What is poor behaviour by one teacher is poor behaviour to all. This is particularly so given the potentially asymmetric power relationship that exists between teacher and student, which can make it difficult for students to speak out against unjust behaviour. Such a message will jar with many academics that will see it as an attack on critical thought. But as, Bruno Latour once lamented, ‘should we rather bring the sword of criticism to criticism itself and do a bit of soul-searching here?’ I’m making a slightly different, but connected, point to Latour. He was opining the demise of criticality because it was a method that had been opened up to to those beyond academia to the point where no truth was possible. The sheer number of people waiting to deconstruct all statements of truth led to a situation where the only truth was ‘non-truth’ (the kind of argument often levelled at social media!). But, I argue, academia is central to this worldview and, because we are in the vanguard of criticality, paradoxically we usually become disembodied in the critical process. It seems that the only group not subjected to criticality are the custodians of the critical project themselves. In effect we have become invisible to the very act of criticality. For those like Latour, this is a big problem because it removes our ability to impose an emphatic critical voice on social contexts. But the filter works both ways: academics are also invisible to critical voices from beyond the walls of academia. And, academia itself only engages in a peculiar type of disembodied criticality, one that does not reduce to the level of the individual actions of its authors. This type of disembodied criticality is well suited to research activities that, after all, seek to generate some kind of truth by moving from the more specific to the more general (Latour would argue that the problem of establishing such truths is a problem in itself), but it is not suited to the dissemination of the outcomes of such truth seeking activities such as teaching. In the spirit of social justice, I propose here that voice and recognition are essential elements of any reasonable human interaction and no situation should omit the possibility for fair and equal interaction between actors in a way that allows all to speak and be heard. What about the autonomy of universities? Is it not desirable, even essential, that such institutions are free from external interventions such as from the state? Should we not be striving to ensure that any established truths maintain some kind of impartial credibility, free from external ideological forces? This point I agree with, which leads me to assert that we should strive to protect the established principles of academic work such as peer review. In particular, academia should never be subjected to externally established curricula. But protecting research should be enough to secure this. As long as academics have a right to carry out research, free from interference, and have the right to disseminate this research within their universities in a similar vein, there should be no need for additional legal protection for the act of teaching. After all, if we are not teaching the outcomes of our research, what are we teaching?
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