{"id":66154,"date":"2012-09-26T08:13:10","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T12:13:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=66154"},"modified":"2012-10-02T11:05:42","modified_gmt":"2012-10-02T15:05:42","slug":"stanley-fish-on-academics-freedom-and-todays-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2012\/09\/stanley-fish-on-academics-freedom-and-todays-universities\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanley Fish on Academics, Freedom, and Today\u2019s Universities"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stanley<\/a>
Stanley Fish, higher education pundit and New York Times columnist, speaks on the topic of academic freedom at Konover Auditorium on Sept. 21. (Christine Buckley\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Higher education pundit and New York Times columnist Stanley Fish makes no apologies for his views on the subject of academic freedom.<\/p>\n

Often, he says, faculty take the concept too far, extending it to \u201cfreedom with a capital F.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSome agendas abandon the adjective \u2018academic\u2019 and focus instead on the word \u2018freedom\u2019,\u201d said the distinguished university professor and professor of law at Florida International University, speaking in Storrs on Friday. \u201cIn these cases, the freedom being exercised springs free of any academic constraints.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a talk titled \u201cVersions of Academic Freedom: From Professionalism to Revolution\u201d hosted by the Humanities Institute and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Fish described a continuum of opinion on academic freedom at universities in the United States. He believes in a strictly professional definition, in which freedoms are limited to the prescribed duties of teaching and research, and not to any other campus activities.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, he said, many faculty take academic freedom as \u201cpermission to start a revolution.\u201d His talk sparked an animated debate, with several dissenting opinions.<\/p>\n

Some agendas abandon the adjective \u2018academic\u2019 and focus instead on the word \u2018freedom.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Academic freedom gives university faculty the right to decide what they want to study and teach and how they want to study it and teach it. In the U.S., the concept was first explained in 1915 in the American Association of University Professors\u2019 \u201cDeclaration of the Principles of Academic Freedom and Tenure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike other sectors of the workforce where superiors dictate an employee\u2019s work, academic freedom comes without interference from a university\u2019s administration or other outside standards \u2013 because the results of academic work can\u2019t be known in advance.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a zone of freedom that is recognized in the classroom and in research activities,\u201d Fish told the crowd in the Dodd Research Center\u2019s Konover Auditorium. \u201cThe problems occur when faculty members don\u2019t see that distinction.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the discussion, attendees questioned the issue as it relates to disciplines such as philosophy, gay and lesbian studies, and political science.<\/p>\n

Thomas Long, associate professor-in-residence in the School of Nursing, said that when he taught at another university, he was asked to prepare a signed statement about the content of his class in sexuality studies. He claimed the request was unfair treatment and violated his academic freedom.<\/p>\n

Fish recounted examples of academic freedom violations that have reached the courts, such as a professor turning a class into planning meetings for social protests, and another outlining in an email to his students his belief that current-day Israel is worse than Nazi Germany.<\/p>\n

But several professors pointed out that comparing current-day political confrontations with those from the past is a valuable teaching tool, and that despite their most earnest efforts, political science faculty can sometimes let their opinions slip into their teaching.<\/p>\n

Despite its various definitions, Fish asserted that academic freedom is invaluable, and that faculty should not have to defend universities as worthy of this \u201cspecial treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n

But when you\u2019re forced into a corner, he said, and there\u2019s no escaping justifying your academic work?<\/p>\n

\u201cHire a PR firm,\u201d he joked. \u201cOr get yourself some good lawyers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A talk by the higher education pundit about the concept that faculty have the right to research and teach whatever they choose sparked a lively discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":66187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[63],"class_list":["post-66154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 18:06:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66154"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66545,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66154\/revisions\/66545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/66187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66154"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=66154"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=66154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}