Inside Higher Ed: Defining Academic Freedom for 2007
In 1940, the American Association of University Professors adopted a “Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure,” a document that ever since has been cited in disputes about the rights of professors to freedom of expression and job security. While plenty of colleges over the years have ignored parts of the document, the statement has come to be seen as a definitive statement on such issues as professors’ right to research and teach controversial ideas, the tenure process and more. The 1940 statement has enough history and support behind it that even critics of the AAUP like to cite the statement.
Today, the American Federation of Teachers — which has about 165,000 members in higher education — is issuing its own statement on academic freedom. On most issues, the substance of the statements (as well as an earlier one from the National Education Association) is similar. All the statements assert that professors do their jobs best with full freedom of thought and expression, and with job security (largely in the form of tenure). All of the statements also say that colleges should be run with shared governance in which professors have a meaningful say in the way institutions are run.
The AFT statement differs from the AAUP’s, however, on a point of policy and in its themes. The AAUP’s 1940 statements defines seven years as the standard amount of time beyond which a faculty member should not work without tenure. The AFT statement has no such limit specified for non-tenured work, and AFT officials said that many of their members who are adjuncts view such a limit as a constraint on their employment, not a protection.
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