Statement on Academic Freedom
 

[Prepared by the UCLA Academic Senate Committee on Academic Freedom, Approved at the October 9, 1984 Legislative Assembly Meeting]

Sometimes, in or around institutions of higher learning, academic freedom is abused. Such abuses take many forms. In examining numerous abuses and alleged abuses, the Committee on Academic Freedom found widespread confusion about academic freedom in both the University and the surrounding communities. To clarify the meaning of academic freedom for both and thus to help to reduce abuses and confusion, the Committee recommends to the Academic Senate and others the following as a concise general statement for reference:

Institutions of higher learning exist to serve society by discovering, creating, examining, transmitting, and preserving knowledge and by educating students. They can effectively maintain the integrity of these basic functions only if the principles of academic freedom are observed.  Academic freedom is freedom from duress or sanction aimed at suppressing the intellectual independence, free investigation, and unfettered communication by the academic community - faculty, librarians, students, and guests of such institutions. Classified research, by its very nature, is inconsistent with academic freedom.

While intended to protect the integrity of these designated functions, academic freedom has both functional and ethical outer limits.

With regard to functional limits, academic freedom precludes neither evaluation of students by teachers nor of faculty members by their peers. In the former case, failure to satisfy faculty-determined academic standards may lead to dismissal. In the latter case failure to satisfy peer-evaluated academic standards may lead to termination of employment, provided academic freedom is not abused in the process and provided academic tenure has not yet been awarded. Tenure itself is one of the bulwarks of academic freedom, and, once awarded, termination of employment may only be for just cause.  Nor does academic freedom preclude collegial prescription of the minimal subject matter covered by a teacher within an individual course of a curriculum if that curriculum is coordinated by a collegially determined prerequisite structure.

With regard to ethical limits, academic freedom does not protect such practices as the following from penalty, even to the point of dismissal: deceit in communication, shirking academic duties, conflict-of-interest, exploiting other members of the academic community, investigational procedures that harm or endanger others without their informed consent, and causing unnecessary suffering by research animals, whether or not any such behavior is legally tolerated.

The first defense of academic freedom is informed support by governing bodies, administrations, faculties, and students in institutions of higher learning and by the general public.   Where academic freedom is respected, the governing bodies of such institutions, with faculty advice, adopt rules and practices to safeguard academic freedom.  The faculties establish committees to monitor, investigate, and adjudicate alleged violations, and to recommend sanctions for violations of these rules and practices. [At UCLA the appropriate committees are designated in the Handbook for Faculty Members of the University of California, in the bylaws of the UCLA Academic Senate, and in the Guidelines for Students at UCLA (now undergoing revision).]  To defend against other intramural or extramural violation of academic freedom, either suasion or legal action may be used, depending on the case.