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Academic freedom: A closer look
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Recently, I took a class in which I missed a weekly exam due to
illness. Upon immediate notification, the professor, in accordance
with his own guidelines, agreed to make up a more difficult
comprehensive exam at the end of the semester for me and whoever
else missed a weekly exam. Fair enough. However, during this time,
a fellow student in my identical circumstance (I talked with him),
was allowed to forgo taking the comprehensive make-up and
administered the same exam he missed that week and during class
time. There was an obvious disparity between the treatment of him
and me. When I confronted the professor, he angrily defended his
decision by saying it was more “convenient” for him and
insisted I was bullying him as to which exam I would take. He told
me to take my case to the dean, so I did. The dean listened
intently to my argument, and seemed to show genuine concern. Even
so, toward the end of our conversation, I heard the two words that
have been plaguing my sense of justice for four long years:
academic freedom.
Academic freedom was first introduced in Germany in the
mid-1800s. The term has evolved over the years and between
continents, and continues to be loosely defined between professors,
higher education institutions and our court systems. Almost every
college and university has in some form or another subscribed to
the idea of academic freedom. There are essentially two types:
Individual academic freedom and institutional academic freedom. The
former protects the individual professor from interference by the
institution, and the latter protects the institution from
interference by the government.
Traditionally, a professor’s academic freedom rests upon
the First Amendment, specifically freedom of speech. While this is
arguable because First Amendment civil liberties were established
in an entirely different context than that of the education
profession, it is nonetheless the cornerstone of academic freedom.
With academic freedom, professors are granted the right to convey
ideas, concepts, and material through their own methods and style,
all this without fear of intrusion by the institution. Intrusions
like demotion, salary decreases, holding back tenure and other
means of implicit intimidation. This has made professors masters of
their domain for quite some time.
For students, academic freedom has increasingly been held up by
professors as a shield to deflect substandard classroom behavior.
On the average, most professors are competent, fair, and
open-minded. But there are a select few who covet the ability to be
indisputable. Any student who has perhaps received an unfair grade,
treatment, or has been subject to demeaning or deficient classroom
instruction by a professor has little recourse in the matter. There
are internal committees set up by institutions to handle such
indiscretions, but in my experience in sitting in on these
processes, it is well known that the odds are almost always in
favor of the professor.
In one such case, I was on the Academic Grievance Board and a
student was disputing a final grade in his class. The student
brought in his evidence including past assignments and exams. The
board was given the professor’s obscure grading scheme with
unusually weighted percentages and asked to calculate the
student’s actual grade. It was a disaster and all ten of us
came up with different final grades for the student. The student
wasn’t remiss about his actual grade; the professor simply
had an impossible grading scheme that was protected by academic
freedom. There are countless examples of these adjudications.
According to Dick Rapp, who has been involved with the Academic
Grievance Board for 15 years, only about one in four cases are
resolved in the student’s favor.
I recently sat down with Boise State’s Provost, Dr. Daryl
Jones and among other things asked him what he thought about my
experience on the Academic Grievance Board. He said, “I think
there has to be a balance between academic freedom on the one hand
and responsibility on the other hand in order to behave as an
academic professional. Being clear and forthright in one’s
grading standards seems to me to be a professional responsibility.
You can’t just use academic freedom as an excuse for
anything.”
Academic freedom and tenure were not designed to protect
professors with god-complexes or ineptitude. In Stastny v. Central
Washington University, the district court ruled that academic
freedom does not include activities that are “internally
destructive” or “disruptive of the educational
process.” Indeed, confusing grading scales, preferential
treatment, unprofessional behavior, these are all internally
destructive elements that serve to diminish the role of academic
freedom. In this fragile political climate, when all of our civil
liberties are at risk, professors should be wary of creating a
false front behind something so sacred to our
institution.
When I asked Provost Jones about professors using academic
freedom in trivial matters in order to protect themselves, he said,
“it’s like any of our other liberties, they are
undermined if they are abused.”
Aubrey Salazar
Columnist
The Arbiter