Conceptualizing Academic Freedom After the Salaita Affair

Abstract

What is the concept of academic freedom, what are the justifications for its existence, and to whom does it belong? These are important questions to ask in determining what, if any, special protections accrue for those performing academic work. Academic freedom is “the freedom to pursue the academic profession according to the standards of that profession” according to Robert Post and Matthew Finkin in their book The Common Good. The standards of the profession are developed, maintained, and policed by other disciplinary practitioners, who are best situated to evaluate the scholarly activities that conform to disciplinary criteria and merit academic freedom protections. The justification of this freedom for academics resides in the importance of the academic task for the betterment of society and the promotion of the common good. The uniqueness of the academic task, as this argument goes, requires special privileges; academic freedom is among them. That academic freedom is for academics goes without saying, of course, but what is its nature, its parameters, and what exactly does it guarantee and to whom? The little discussion of academic freedom within American case law seems to recognize it more as an institutional than individual right, as recent rulings on affirmative actions policies illustrate. In other words, the academic institution may decide who may teach, what will be taught and who will be admitted for study. This conception of academic freedom seems to place academic freedom in the hands of administrators instead of faculty. One may argue that academic freedom is as elusive as ever, with conceptions of it ranging from a professional guild privilege, to identifying it as an ingredient in producing societal revolution. How has a professional concept, seemingly reserved for academics, become so contested and ill-defined and misunderstood, even among academics themselves? In his Versions of Academic Freedom: From Professionalism to Revolution, Stanley Fish identifies five “schools of academic freedom,” which are meant to represent