Nerd News: Academic Freedom? YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.
Read this summary of a current campus controversy at the University of California at San Diego (my emphasis in boldface):
When two faculty members disagree about issues related to research, is it right for an administrator to intervene?
A faculty committee at the University of California at San Diego examined that question in a report this week that finds that a dean responded to a dispute between two professors by telling one not to publish or speak out about the other's research. And that order, the committee concluded, violated basic principles of academic freedom.
"Faculty members’ rights to study, re-analyze, and publish controversial scholarly materials cannot be abridged," says the report from the UCSD Committee on Academic Freedom. "These rights to academic freedom cannot be administratively revoked to prevent possible future breaching of professional norms. In our view, the campus administration’s fundamental responsibility is precisely to protect the right of faculty members to research and publish scholarly work even when others, on or off campus, find the work or its conclusions controversial or objectionable."
Well, DUH.
1 comment:
That a dean would do something like this would, to me, call into question his ability to perform his job. Or, for that matter, whether he even understands what his job is.
Firing is a serious matter, but (were I UCSD's dictator) I would certainly put the dean on notice that one more incident even remotely resembling this would end his career at my university. And of course require him to write a 500-word essay on the meaning of academic freedom in the university.
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