Tag: academic freedom

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December 9, 2023

In recent months, trustees, donors, lobbying organizations, and members of Congress have repeatedly misrepresented the words and deeds of Penn faculty and students who have expressed concern for Palestinian civilians and criticized the war in Gaza, going so far as to suggest that faculty who have publicly condemned Hamas were Hamas supporters and that groups protesting genocide were calling for genocide. These distortions and attacks on our colleagues have not addressed the scourge of antisemitism—a real and grave problem. Instead, they have threatened the ability of faculty and students to research, teach, study, and publicly discuss the history, politics, and cultures of Israel and Palestine. These attacks strike at the heart of the mission of an educational institution: to foster open, critical, and rigorous research and teaching that can produce knowledge for the public good in a democratic society.

The ability of donors, lobbying groups, and members of Congress to destabilize the University of Pennsylvania reveals the need to restore a strong faculty voice in the governance of the institution. The next president must defend the principles of shared governance and academic freedom, which protect the educational mission of the university. And they must correct what has become a dangerous myth suggesting that the defense of academic freedom and open expression is in any way contradictory to the fight against antisemitism. We intend to see that Penn’s next president lives up to this responsibility.

For further information, please see past statements of the AAUP-Penn Executive Committee:

  1. Statement on Threats to Academic Freedom, University Governance, and Safety at the University of Pennsylvania, October 28
  2. Letter on Targeted Harassment, November 20
  3. Urgent message regarding film screening and threats to academic freedom, November 28
  4. Message on the Dec. 5 Congressional hearing, Dec. 6
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The policies of the University of Pennsylvania protect academic freedom, which is essential to the research and teaching mission of universities and to students’ freedom in learning. The concept of academic freedom was first articulated during the early twentieth century by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), and its canonical definition is found in the AAUP’s 1940 Statement of Principles and 1970 Interpretive Comments. This statement has been endorsed by over 250 scholarly and educational organizations in the United States, and its principles are written into faculty handbooks nationwide, including Penn’s.

The principles of academic freedom were established to protect the integrity of research and teaching from interference by donors, trustees, politicians, and others who might seek to make universities serve private and political interests. They are founded on the idea that a university’s purpose is to generate new knowledge that can serve the common good in a democratic society, and that generating new knowledge requires free and open inquiry. To safeguard the university’s public mission, academic freedom entails the following rights for all faculty members—whether tenure-track or non-tenure track, and including graduate research and teaching assistants—and for students:

  • The right of faculty members to full freedom in research and teaching. This means that decisions about research and curricular matters are the province of faculty, who are hired on the basis of their professional qualifications in those areas. It also means that decisions about the hiring, promotion, and discipline of faculty members are to be made on the basis of their fitness to do the work of research and teaching, and determinations of fitness are made through formal, careful reviews by faculty members with the scholarly training to make informed evaluations. Academic decisions do not belong to trustees, donors, administrators, politicians, or others who lack academic expertise.

    Faculty members’ rights to freedom in research and teaching are not individual rights to say whatever one pleases in publications or in the classroom: a historian of Europe who espouses Holocaust denial or a biologist who teaches intelligent design is not protected by academic freedom because the academic profession in those fields has rejected those ideas as groundless and intellectually indefensible.  The rights to freedom in research and teaching are best understood as collective rights of the academic profession to determine the fitness of scholars to do the work of research and teaching within their areas of expertise, and they protect scholars who meet that standard from inappropriate pressure that would constrain free and open inquiry.

    Freedom in research and teaching is not a guild privilege: it is essential to students’ right to freedom in learning. It ensures that students take courses designed by qualified researchers and educators, not by donors, trustees, administrators, politicians, or others acting on the basis of non-academic preferences.

  • The right of faculty members to freedom in extramural speech—that is, speech on issues of general concern made as a member of the public. This right is necessary to protect freedom in research and teaching, as it prevents “pretextual” discipline—that is, cases in which trustees or administrators target a faculty member because they disagree with the substance of their scholarship, but rather than say so, they find a controversial statement that the professor has made in public and use that as the basis of discipline. This right protects speech made as a member of the public both within and beyond a faculty member’s area of expertise. According to the principles of academic freedom, extramural speech is not in itself grounds for discipline except in the rare case that it demonstrates unfitness to do the work of research and teaching. Such a determination must be made through a formal, careful review of evidence by faculty members.
  • The right of faculty members to freedom in intramural speech—that is, speech about the university itself that professors make as members of the institution. Faculty members have the right and responsibility to participate in the governance of their universities, and this right protects their ability to do so.  It establishes that faculty may not be disciplined for criticizing the university, as such threats of discipline would make it impossible for faculty to have a meaningful, independent institutional voice.
  • The right of students to freedom in learning. Codified in the AAUP’s 1967 Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students, this protects students’ freedom of expression and association, including the freedom to engage in political activity, all of which are essential aspects of learning and education. It also establishes that students are entitled to freedom of inquiry in the classroom. Finally, it stipulates that faculty do not evaluate students on the basis of their own or their students’ political views or activities. That ensures that faculty members and students can participate in public and political life without their speech threatening students’ freedom in learning.

These rights did not originate in the Constitution or in legislation, and they are not self-enforcing. Academic freedom is only as strong as the institutions, procedures, and professional norms that faculty members established over the last century to protect it:

  • Faculty governance institutions. Faculty across the United States incorporated AAUP principles into faculty handbooks, and they created Faculty Senates and faculty unions to enforce these policies.
  • Due process.  Written into Faculty Handbooks and union contracts, due process procedures protect all faculty members from unjust discipline or termination by requiring formal processes of review and appeal.
  • Tenure. The institution of tenure was created in order to protect academic freedom, on the understanding that job insecurity is the greatest threat to freedom in research and teaching.
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The AAUP–Penn Executive Committee issued the following message (also linked here as a PDF) today, November 28:

Dear Members,

The AAUP-Penn Executive Committee is deeply concerned to learn that the Penn administration has refused to allow a Jewish student organization, Penn Chavurah, to reserve a room this semester to screen Israelism, a documentary film about young Jewish Americans who have traveled to Israel and Palestine and developed critical perspectives on Israeli government policies. The administration’s refusal to allow students to screen a documentary film on campus is one more expression of our university leadership’s failure to uphold the principles of academic freedom—principles enshrined in Penn’s policies and essential to the mission of a university. Academic freedom entails the freedom of students to learn, and to encounter and critically examine multiple interpretations of the world. Students’ freedom to learn also entails their right to political speech and association, which are essential aspects of education and learning. In denying students these freedoms, the university administration violates its own policies and endangers the principles of academic freedom that are essential to the research and teaching mission of a university.

The Executive Committee commends our colleagues at the Middle East Center for reserving a room for the film screening, which as of now will take place tonight, November 28 at 6:30 p.m. in Meyerson Hall Room B1. We encourage all faculty members to attend to demonstrate their support for academic freedom. Should the screening site be moved, we will do our best to notify members. 

We are also gravely concerned by reports that administrators have allegedly told the Middle East Center to cancel the screening, and have allegedly informed Penn Chavurah that the group might lose its status or funding if tonight’s screening occurs. 

We are alarmed to learn that in response to this inappropriate pressure from administrators, the director of the Middle East Center submitted his resignation today. His resignation underlines the gravity of the crisis, and the responsibility the President and Provost have for creating and exacerbating it.  

We condemn in the strongest possible terms any pressure by administrators, donors, and trustees to prevent the Middle East Center from reserving a room to screen a documentary film that falls squarely within the Center’s area of expertise. It is the right of faculty members to make academic programming decisions.  We are particularly concerned that the Middle East Center has already lost its federal funding because the university failed to provide adequate support for its activities. Any further threats to the Center’s ability to fulfill its academic mission will only hurt our university, our faculty, and our students.

We have reported these concerns about academic freedom to the national office of the AAUP. We encourage departments, programs, and the Faculty Senate to speak out against this effort to suppress academic freedom.

— AAUP-Penn Executive Committee

AAUP-Penn Nov 28 Message on MEC Film Screening and Further Threats to Academic Freedom

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