Academic freedom concerns raised by AAUP report
Jesse Goldberg
Issue date: 11/19/09 Section: News
The courts have established that the First Amendment does not protect private employees' speech from discipline. "In the private sector you don't have the same sorts of rights [as in public]," Floss said. "Your boss can tell you that you can't say something."
"It's not always clear when a teacher is acting within his or her official duties," Showers said. "But laws are vague and unclear … specifics of the law are resolved in specific cases."
"One of the strange consequences of [past rulings] about official duties is that the more of an expert you are on a topic, the more you have to temper what you say and the less you can speak openly," Showers said. "As an education professor, if I write a book about how schools are run, my speech is not protected because that is a duty within my realm of expertise. But if a mathematics professor wrote the same book it would be outside of his area of expertise and protected."
The AAUP report calls for faculty senates at both private and public colleges to "develop policy statements at the institutional level that will explicitly incorporate protections for faculty speech on institutional academic matters and governance."
"The SUNY system … already does many of the things the report wants, since it is a system with a definite position on academic freedom," Showers said, noting though that some members of the SUNY-wide University Faculty Senate have raised the issue of whether the Board of Trustees should be pressed for a stronger statement.
"The only way we're able to grow and share knowledge is through shared governance, and any possible threat to that needs to be considered carefully," Floss said.
"It's not always clear when a teacher is acting within his or her official duties," Showers said. "But laws are vague and unclear … specifics of the law are resolved in specific cases."
"One of the strange consequences of [past rulings] about official duties is that the more of an expert you are on a topic, the more you have to temper what you say and the less you can speak openly," Showers said. "As an education professor, if I write a book about how schools are run, my speech is not protected because that is a duty within my realm of expertise. But if a mathematics professor wrote the same book it would be outside of his area of expertise and protected."
The AAUP report calls for faculty senates at both private and public colleges to "develop policy statements at the institutional level that will explicitly incorporate protections for faculty speech on institutional academic matters and governance."
"The SUNY system … already does many of the things the report wants, since it is a system with a definite position on academic freedom," Showers said, noting though that some members of the SUNY-wide University Faculty Senate have raised the issue of whether the Board of Trustees should be pressed for a stronger statement.
"The only way we're able to grow and share knowledge is through shared governance, and any possible threat to that needs to be considered carefully," Floss said.
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