Restricting academic freedom
from David Ruccio
Stanely Fish wants to restrict the meaning of academic freedom—and then sweep everything else under the rug.
I actually have no problem with Fish’s restricted definition of academic freedom.
The pursuit of truth is what is done in classrooms and laboratories and that is why those activities should be protected from outside interference. Truth cannot be pursued if constraints in the form of political or ideological preferences block the search for it. Other activities not in the pursuit-of-truth business merit no such protection because there is no specifically academic value to their being allowed to occur without constraint.
So, yes, academic freedom can and should cover what goes on in the classroom and in research activities. And it covers a wide range of issues, from the “sexual exhibition staged for a valid educational purpose” at Northwestern University to the “controversy at Florida State University over a gift given to the economics department in 2008 by a foundation funded by the ultra-conservative Koch brothers.”
But then Fish wants to sweep everything else under the rug, such as CUNY’s decision to award an honorary degree to Tony Kushner, students’ ability to invite speakers to campus, and the teaching of courses. I agree: those aren’t academic freedom issues. But they are university governance issues.
The problem with Fish’s analysis is he takes the governance of the new corporate university as given. Faculty members teach and do research, and they’re covered by academic freedom. Students buy an education and are they to be alternately taught and entertained. And academic administrators run the place, without interference from students or faculty.
What Fish fails to understand is that the idea of the university is governed by a number of principles, including but not restricted to academic freedom. Shared governance is also an important principle, since it protects and enriches the idea of the university as a space of critical thought. Critical thinking is not only what happens in the classroom and in research but is also reflected in honorary degrees, invited speakers, and what courses are taught.
Sweeping those issues under the rug in an attempt to restrict the meaning of academic freedom just serves to reinforce the new corporate university and to undermine the idea of the university.
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Real-World Economics Review Blog 
Students do not buy an education. They’re not clients. They buy (or hope to do so) good organization and services like the modern library. But when it comes to education, they are participants in a shared endeavour, not clients. An “A” (“10”)is not for sale – you have to work for it.
The whole purpose and intent of ace=ademic freedom was that it was originally inshrined as a core principle in publicly funded universities, to protect academics and their research from the ugly face of corporate interests. It was knowledge for knowledge sake, a wonderful thing in a civilised society that recognises the benefit of unbiased untainted knowledge.
Alas, now that universities have been sold to the highest bidder…we get the sort of “knowledge” we deserve…tainted and corrupt.
David said:
I actually have no problem with Fish’s restricted definition of academic freedom.
“The pursuit of truth is what is done in classrooms and laboratories and that is why those activities should be protected from outside interference. Truth cannot be pursued if constraints in the form of political or ideological preferences block the search for it. Other activities not in the pursuit-of-truth business merit no such protection because there is no specifically academic value to their being allowed to occur without constraint.”
Please define the “pursuit of truth business”.
In my view “truth” is a little boat bobbing on the ocean waves.
The name of the ocean is “Political and Ideological Preferences”.
Academia as a sanctuary for “truth seekers”? Really? that is not my conclusion from over 30 years in academia–particularly in the West. There is the search for “my truths”, what “truths” that I, ME ME ME can handle from a cognitive dissonance point of view and research will be on what pet issues or projects that I, ME ME ME deign to show interest in (later morphed into the pressing issues of the times because I, ME ME ME am working on it).
As a character in Sean O’Casey’s play “The White Plague” put it: “Nothing is so passionate as a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction.” most of academia is but ideological clone factories with supposed radicals as often ideologically rigid, intolderant, narcissistic and arrogant as anything from the neoclassicals and their own ideological cloning.
so omahkohkia
you state
” There is the search for “my truths”, what “truths” that I, ME ME ME can handle from a cognitive dissonance point of view and research will be on what pet issues or projects that I, ME ME ME deign to show interest in (later morphed into the pressing issues of the times because I, ME ME ME am working on it).”
so is that better or not that working for a private organisation that tells you, instructs you, and pays you to go work for “their their their truths” only?.
Give me a break.
Omahkohakia’s point is well worth considering. As just one example, consider some of the recent controversies that are generated when some scholars take positions that are unpopular with pro – Israel groups. The decision to read certain books as a community exercise is to me an important exercise of academic freedom. Some of the recent controversies involved reading books that are highly critical of Israel’s actions and policies toward Palestinians in the occupied territories. Even this choice of words can be very inflammatory, even if it is not intended.
The biggest problem I have with Fish’s definition as quoted, is the assumption that learning occurs only in classrooms and laboratories. Critical discussion and engagement can occur anywhere. The ability to invite speakers to campus, or to decide which courses to teach etc, are both university governance and academic freedom issues. University governance may be a tool that can be used to enhance (or hinder?) academic freedom.
Even if I consider myself to be on a search for truth, my activities will harm some interests and promote others. Any research activity will do so. If I investigate food safety, such as the incidence of e. coli outbreaks at beef processing plants, I would be promoting public health, possibly at the expense of the profits and income of the beef industry and cattle ranchers. What I consider to be a ‘search for truth’ someone else will consider to be an ‘ideologically motivated hatchet job.’
One must ask how institutions of higher learning are integrated into a society. They may be beset by conflicting missions. First, foster some form of free inquiry. Second, train the workforce to fit into the currently existing institutions of society. To the extent that ‘free inquiry’ calls into question the currently existing institutions of society, the conflict is obvious.
Thus, I find myself in agreement with David. To the extent that corporate influence reduces the input of others on the governance front, it will likely also reduce the academic freedom. I also find that Omahkahokia’s point becomes even more important to consider as a result.
Many journalists will tell you that no editor ever told them what to write or not write and they are telling the truth; no one had to tell them what is taboo and what is permissible, they came paradigm-ready-willing-and-able to self-censor themselves with no need for having to be told what is within and what is outside of the permissible. For my own classes I give, as an extra-credit assignment, the students are to give me a list of questions of anyone in power from any period of history that if posed by say some journalist, the questions would get their careers totally destroyed and/or get them killed. For example: Bill Clinton is at a press conference touting his Clinton Foundation work on AIDS (Bill is still on his quest for a Nobel Peace Prize like the one Obama got for “potential” while continuing two illegal wars–I love it) and some journalist asks Clinton: “Mr. President, as a result of your own work and that of your foundation on HIV/AIDS, has this work led you to any new realizations and awareness of just how reckless, self-indulgent, dangerous and abusive was your own obvious unprotected sexual relations (e.g. presidoo on the blue dress) or whatever you choose to call what you clearly did with Ms Lewinsky? For mainstream academia, the spiral of suc[k]cess in media runs like this: ACCESS brings the SCOOP; the SCOOP brings EXPOSURE; EXPOSURE brings CELEBRITY/RATINGS/MARKET POWER; CELEBRITY ETC brings expanded ACCESS and … This works the same in Acadmemia (all sorts of Faustian deals, self-censorship and Academics not needing to be told what is taboo or permissible, what is a proper journal to be published in and what not; what is a career-enhancing sub-discipline in Economics to study in and what is not; what is a career-enhancing text to use versus not career enhancing; what are the career-enhancing schools and great names to study with and what not; etc…
I have personally seen academics travel to some exotic locale, wind up with a companion from that place, only to return and set themselves up with courses and papers on the political economy of that nation or region, and instantly self-credential themselves and their courses and research as some kind of expert market niche even when those academics never learn even the languages of the regions in which they have suddenly become so expert. Even in terms of picking research topics and areas there is so much narcissism and petty-bourgeois individualism among some self-proclaimed leftists in terms of how they even go about selecting their areas of research and teaching interest and we see little of trying to identify critical issues of the times and then evolving cooperative divisions of labot to allow scholars from diverse persoectives to focus collectively on the critical issues and contradictions in need of analysis (what real leftists do); and finally, you get these pathetic journals like RRPE that no oppressed people will ever have access to let alone be able to read, understand and apply in real struggles on real issues by real oppressed peoples. We get the ususal conferences, hype, radical chic, posturing, great names and hero worship and basically the same cloistered, elitist, smug, entitled and irrelevant stuff coming out of “progressive” (no need to use any really daring labels like Marxist or even “Marxian” when generic “progressive” works so well) coming out with often also self-censorship, ideological purity, ridigity and arrogance, and the like passed off from the nominal left of North America resembling some of the right-wing ideologues and know-it-alls from the right-wing. And you often see such intensity from some of the nominal or self-proclaimed leftists that my mother used to call the ones who “love humanity but are hateful to real people” or like the social democrats and parlor liberals who, as my mother also put it: “are the ones whose hearts bleed, so piously, publicly, sanctimoniously and dramatically but always they “bleed” with someone else’s blood.”
The old saying is the only sared cow of the press is the press itself. This applies to academia as well.
says
“We get the ususal conferences, hype, radical chic, posturing, great names and hero worship and basically the same cloistered, elitist, smug, entitled and irrelevant stuff coming out of “progressive” (no need to use any really daring labels like Marxist or even “Marxian” when generic “progressive” works so well) coming out with often also self-censorship, ideological purity, ridigity and arrogance, and the like passed off from the nominal left of North America resembling some of the right-wing ideologues and know-it-alls from the right-wing. And you often see such intensity from some of the nominal or self-proclaimed leftists that my mother used to call the ones who “love humanity but are hateful to real people” or like the social democrats and parlor liberals who, as my mother also put it: “are the ones whose hearts bleed, so piously, publicly, sanctimoniously and dramatically but always they “bleed” with someone else’s blood.”
Wow – for the smug elitism I sure am glad no business is beating them with stick, or paying them to lie in a joournal academe of the sort of produce that is so obviously deficient, lightweight and emanates an odour of the political commercially invested stink tanks that about now (fale research by fake charlatans). Mostly its not unbiased knowledge its mostly biased rubbish.
ID rather own my own ideas, no matter how posturing, no matter how much or how piously my heart bleeds on a Sunday, than have some employer tell me what he wants me to say for money, my pay. Would you like your family docor to be like that for money? Doctors posture too you know. Those with knowledge do tend to posture – get over it.
What makes you think the private sector does it any better omahkohkiaayo? Ill still take those posturing academics any day. At least they are not sold out.
Oh and one cant mistake the aversion to progressives or the left in such a vitriolic post against academia. Mere labels no matter what your dear Mum told you and just a narrow way of dividing ideas into tribes. Thats your interptretation of academia – and its somewhat slanted politically and iedologially. We have heard all this before from right ring ranters “all academe is left”. It may surprise you but your own kind (the kind that hates progessives and the so called left which is essentially a meaningless term) are in academe as well.