Voice of the Faculty

Be sure to vote. The Senate election began May 5 and continues until 5pm May 16. This year all voting is on-line and includes a referendum on the switch to semesters and election of Senate officers. To vote, click here. If you have any questions on voting write or call Boni at 53851.

Academic freedom is fundamental to our academic community. The University of California statement on academic freedom, which was drafted in 1934, has recently been updated and revised. The statement has served the university for more than 58 years. The new statement will be considered at the next Academic Assembly meeting.

The new statement of academic freedom[1] is succinct and clear. Since it is so important to our work I have taken the liberty of displaying the complete statement below:

The University of California is committed to upholding and preserving principles of academic freedom. These principles guarantee freedom of inquiry and research, freedom of teaching, and freedom of expression and publication. These principles reflect the University’s fundamental mission of discovering knowledge and of disseminating knowledge to its students and to society at large. Knowledge cannot be advanced unless there is freedom of exploration and investigation. It cannot be transmitted to our students and to the public unless there is freedom of expression and publication, both inside and beyond the classroom. The University also seeks to instill in its students a mature independence of mind, and this purpose cannot be achieved unless students and teachers are free within the classroom to express the widest range of viewpoints within the norms of scholarly inquiry and professional ethics.

Academic freedom depends upon respect for the academic competence of the faculty. It is only by reference to that competence that the University may discover and disseminate the knowledge that is central to its mission. It is of the essence of academic freedom that the assessment of teaching and scholarship reflect the application of academic standards.[2] The University expresses respect for faculty expertise in the application of such standards in the Standing Orders of the Regents, which establish a system of shared governance among the Regents, the Administration and the Academic Senate. Academic freedom requires that the Academic Senate be given primary responsibility for applying academic standards, subject to review by the Administration for abuse of discretion, and that the Academic Senate exercise its responsibility in full compliance with applicable standards of professional care.

Members of the faculty are entitled as University employees to the full protections of the Constitution of the United States and of the Constitution of the State of California. These protections are in addition to whatever rights, privileges and responsibilities attach to the academic freedom of university faculty.

Our Academic Freedom Committee has reviewed the revision and is supportive of the changes. If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us hear from you.

[1] The original language of § 10 of the APM, which was drafted in 1934, associated academic freedom with scholarship that gave “play to intellect rather than to passion.” It conceived scholarship as “dispassionate” and as concerned only with “the logic of the facts.” The revised version of § 10 repudiates this standpoint. It holds that academic freedom depends upon the quality of scholarship, which is to be assessed by the content of scholarship, not by the motivations that led to its production. The revision of § 10 therefore does not distinguish between “interested” and “disinterested” scholarship; it differentiates instead between competent and incompetent scholarship. Although competent scholarship requires an open mind, this does not mean that faculty are unprofessional if they reach definite conclusions. It means rather that faculty must always stand ready to revise their conclusions in the light of new evidence or further discussion. Although competent scholarship requires the exercise of reason, this does not mean that faculty are unprofessional if they are urgently committed to a definite point of view. It means rather that faculty must form their point of view by applying professional standards of inquiry rather than by succumbing to external and illegitimate incentives such as monetary gain or political coercion. Competent scholarship can and frequently does communicate definite and politically salient viewpoints about important and controversial questions.

[2] Academic freedom entails correlative duties of professional care when teaching, conducting research, or otherwise acting as a member of the faculty. The contours of these duties are more fully set forth in The Faculty Code of Conduct (APM 015).