Academic freedom concepts and implications

Academic Freedom

Professors have been accused in recent years of indoctrinating rather than educating, of failing to provide balanced perspectives on controversial issues, of creating a hostile learning environment for conservative or religious students, and of injecting irrelevant political asides into class discussion and as such the statement is ostensibly meant to address the very real issues surrounding faculty classroom conduct that have arisen of late (O'Connor). As a result of these objections, many are calling for the limitation of educators and their freedom in teaching what they feel is relevant or effective. Many believe that professors jobs should be standardized so that there is a universal curriculum is offered and all students are taught the same material across the board. This would prohibit instructors from offering opinioned material or indoctrinating students into one opinion or another.

Despite the objections to academic freedom which might be justified in rare cases, there is no way to teach critical thinking without some leeway to teach what students are interested in and to research ideas independently. If students are only provided summaries of debates in academia, then there is not much opportunity to develop reasoning skills that would be gained from taking a position on some debatable issue and working through the evidence. One of the central purposes of higher education is to challenge students to think hard about their own perspectives and their own reasoning through logic and evidence. Thus it is difficult to teach such an investigation through a standardized curriculum.

Body

We would be blinking at reality if we failed to acknowledge that recent challenges to "freedom in the classroom" are being advanced to further a particular political agenda; this is not the first time that universities have been suspected of harboring faculties who undermine established institutions and prevailing social values (Finkin, Post and Nelson). The recent calls to limit academic freedom are just that, the academic world is being subject to many of the mainstream ideologies that are present in the public. Even if there is a scientific consensus surrounding any academic topic, such as climate change or evolution, if the position of the consensus does not agree with certain ideologies then there will be calls for reform to "teach the controversy" (Meyer).

Refutation

The refutation takes up the right's four most prominent complaints about professors' classroom demeanor: "(1) instructors 'indoctrinate' rather than educate; (2) instructors fail fairly to present conflicting views on contentious subjects, thereby depriving students of educationally essential 'diversity' or 'balance'; (3) instructors are intolerant of students' religious, political, or socioeconomic views, thereby creating a hostile atmosphere inimical to learning; and (4) instructors persistently interject material, especially of a political or ideological character, irrelevant to the subject of instruction" (Baruba).

Conclusion

Although the appeals to limit academic freedom may seem reasonable to some, they are nothing more than an attempt to squash science, the scientific method, and critical thinking. They require that many contentious subjects be taught from many angles such as from religious perspectives. However, such controversies are not necessarily found in science. For example, the theory of evolution has become so mainstream a view in science that it serves as the foundation of the entire discipline of biology. Yet the religious perspective would advocate that intelligent design is responsible for the various species in our biological diverse planet. Although intelligent design might seem plausible to members of the public, it stands no weight with the overwhelming majority of scientists.