Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education


Book Description

Civility, Free Speech, and Academic Freedom in Higher Education: Faculty on the Margins represents a multidisciplinary approach, deploying different theoretical, methodological, sociological, political, and creative perspectives to articulate the stakes of civility for marginalized faculty within the landscape of higher education. How has the discourse on civility and free speech within academia become a systemic and oppressive form of silencing, suppressing, or eradicating marginal voices? What are some overt and covert ways in which institutions are using the logic of civility to control faculty uprising against the increasingly corporate-controlled landscape of higher education? This collection of essays examines the continuum between the post-9/11 and the post-Trump era backlashes. It details the organized retaliations against those in academia whose views and scholarships articulate their discontents against the U.S.-led "War on Terror." It contests the rise of White supremacy, Trump’s Muslim ban, anti-immigrant and racist government policies and rhetoric, and those who support the Boycott and Divestment Sanctions movements within the corporatized universities. All of these new and original essays shed light and further the debate on the various modes of civility that have become politicized within the U.S. academy. It will have a broad appeal to a cross section of national and international academics, activist scholars, social justice educators and researchers in the field of higher education.




Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom


Book Description

Academic freedom rests on a shared belief that the production of knowledge advances the common good. In an era of education budget cuts, wealthy donors intervening in university decisions, and right-wing groups threatening dissenters, scholars cannot expect that those in power will value their work. Can academic freedom survive in this environment—and must we rearticulate what academic freedom is in order to defend it? This book presents a series of essays by the renowned historian Joan Wallach Scott that explore the history and theory of free inquiry and its value today. Scott considers the contradictions in the concept of academic freedom. She examines the relationship between state power and higher education; the differences between the First Amendment right of free speech and the guarantee of academic freedom; and, in response to recent campus controversies, the politics of civility. The book concludes with an interview conducted by Bill Moyers in which Scott discusses the personal experiences that have informed her views. Academic freedom is an aspiration, Scott holds: its implementation always falls short of its promise, but it is essential as an ideal of ethical practice. Knowledge, Power, and Academic Freedom is both a nuanced reflection on the tensions within a cherished concept and a strong defense of the importance of critical scholarship to safeguard democracy against the anti-intellectualism of figures from Joseph McCarthy to Donald Trump.




Free Speech on Campus


Book Description

Can free speech coexist with an inclusive campus environment? Hardly a week goes by without another controversy over free speech on college campuses. On one side, there are increased demands to censor hateful, disrespectful, and bullying expression and to ensure an inclusive and nondiscriminatory learning environment. On the other side are traditional free speech advocates who charge that recent demands for censorship coddle students and threaten free inquiry. In this clear and carefully reasoned book, a university chancellor and a law school dean—both constitutional scholars who teach a course in free speech to undergraduates—argue that campuses must provide supportive learning environments for an increasingly diverse student body but can never restrict the expression of ideas. This book provides the background necessary to understanding the importance of free speech on campus and offers clear prescriptions for what colleges can and can’t do when dealing with free speech controversies.




Free Speech and Campus Civility


Book Description

Many colleges and universities are struggling to strike a balance between protecting free speech as a way of supporting their goal of academic freedom and promoting civility as a way of creating an environment where students can learn and faculty members can teach and conduct research. There have been numerous recent incidents of audiences shouting down speakers, burning books, and demanding that specific students be expelled or faculty members be terminated. In this highly fractious environment, schools are wondering “What works?” when seeking to attain the twin goals of permitting unrestricted speech but insisting on rules of decorum for debate and the exchange of perspectives. This book explores what schools have actually attempted, in some cases successfully and in some cases not successfully, to address these issues. It concludes that there are three primary strategies that tend to be effective: treating challenges to free speech and campus civility as “teachable moments”; exploring hypothetical scenarios with students, faculty members, and administrators before there is a serious incident; and approaching free speech and campus civility across the curriculum. The book also surveys United States case law on the topics of free speech, academic freedom, the right to protest, and similar subjects so as to provide faculty members and administrators with a concise resource filled with practical and accurate information.




Free Speech and Campus Civility


Book Description

Many colleges and universities are struggling to strike a balance between protecting free speech as a way of supporting their goal of academic freedom and promoting civility as a way of creating an environment where students can learn and faculty members can teach and conduct research. There have been numerous recent incidents of audiences shouting down speakers, burning books, and demanding that specific students be expelled or faculty members be terminated. In this highly fractious environment, schools are wondering "What works?" when seeking to attain the twin goals of permitting unrestricted speech but insisting on rules of decorum for debate and the exchange of perspectives. This book explores what schools have actually attempted, in some cases successfully and in some cases not successfully, to address these issues. It concludes that there are three primary strategies that tend to be effective: treating challenges to free speech and campus civility as "teachable moments"; exploring hypothetical scenarios with students, faculty members, and administrators before there is a serious incident; and approaching free speech and campus civility across the curriculum. The book also surveys United States case law on the topics of free speech, academic freedom, the right to protest, and similar subjects so as to provide faculty members and administrators with a concise resource filled with practical and accurate information.




Free Speech and Liberal Education


Book Description

Free Speech and Liberal Education examines the empirical, philosophical, and remedial dimensions of the battle over free speech and academic freedom in American higher education today.




Recommended Principles to Guide Academy-Industry Relationships


Book Description

The reputation of a college or institution depends upon the integrity of its faculty and administration. Though budgets are important, ethics are vital, and a host of new ethical problems now beset higher education. From MOOCS and intellectual property rights to drug industry payments and conflicts of interest, this book offers AAUP policy language and best practices to deal with all the campus-wide challenges of today's corporate university: • Preserving the integrity of research and public respect for higher education • Eliminating and managing individual and institutional financial conflicts of interest • Maintaining unbiased hiring and recruitment policies • Establishing grievance procedures and due process rights for faculty, graduate students, and academic professionals • Mastering the complications of negotiations over patents and copyright • Assuring the ethics of research involving human subjects. In a time of dynamic change Recommended Principles to Guide Academy-Industry Relationships offers an indispensable and authoritative guide to sustaining integrity and tradition while achieving great things in twenty-first century academia.




Constitutional Domains


Book Description

In a series of remarkable forays, Post develops an original account of how law functions in a democratic society. He draws on work in sociology, philosophy, and political theory, to offer a radically new perspective on some of the most pressing constitutional issues of our day, such as the regulation of racist speech, pornography, and privacy.




For the Common Good


Book Description

This book offers a concise explanation of the history and meaning of American academic freedom, and it attempts to intervene in contemporary debates by clarifying the fundamental functions and purposes of academic freedom in America.--From publisher description.




Knowledge in the Making


Book Description

How free are students and teachers to express unpopular ideas in public schools and universities? Not free enough, Joan DelFattore suggests. Wading without hesitation into some of the most contentious issues of our times, she investigates battles over a wide range of topics that have fractured school and university communities—homosexuality-themed children's books, research on race-based intelligence, the teaching of evolution, the regulation of hate speech, and more—and with her usual evenhanded approach offers insights supported by theory and by practical expertise. Two key questions arise: What ideas should schools and universities teach? And what rights do teachers and students have to disagree with those ideas? The answers are not the same for K–12 schools as they are for public universities. But far from drawing a bright line between them, DelFattore suggests that we must consider public education as a whole to determine how—and how successfully—it deals with conflicting views. When expert opinion clashes with popular belief, which should prevail? How much independence should K–12 teachers have? How do we foster the cutting-edge research that makes America a world leader in higher education? What are the free-speech rights of students? This uniquely accessible and balanced discussion deserves the full attention of everyone concerned with academic goals and agendas in our schools.