Legal Effects of Academic Freedom in Academic Institutions

In 1915, the newly- ensnareed American affiliation of University Professors (AAUP) issued its Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure (Weidner, 2003, p. 445). fleck the Declaration did not directly define donnish granting immunity, philosopher and give way of the AAUP, Arthur Lovejoy, offered this definition:

Academic freedom is the freedom of a teacher or researcher in higher institutions of learning to analyze and discuss the problems of his science and to express his conclusions, whether through publication or the instruction of students, without interference from political or ecclesiastical authority, or from the administrative officials of the institution in which he is employed, unless his methods are found by qualified bodies of his own profession to be intelligibly incompetent or contrary to professional ethics (Weidner, 2003, p. 445).

The qualification members who drafted the Declaration thought the university as an entity should be a two-party community detached from the political struggles of the outside world. They believed that individual professors should be able to express their opinions freely on controversial subjects spell academic institutions should observe a strict neutrality toward every(prenominal) political, economic and social issues (Weidner, 2003, p. 445). In addition, Karen Daly, a legal scholar, maintains

Nelson, J. (Winter 2003). Academic freedom, institutional integrity, and teacher education. teacher Education Quarterly, 30, 1, 65-72.

that the purest form of academic freedom as a justification for teachers' First Amendment rights is premised on the unique nature of teach as a form of activity protected by the First Amendment (Daly, 2001, p. 1). Under this theory, the speech of teachers is somehow qualitatively antithetic from that of other public employees and therefore necessitates special protection.

The ultimate intend behind the AAUP's definition of academic freedom is an attempt to interest in the classroom and on school campuses the democracy into which students allow graduate when they leave the campus.

Donald Weidner is the dean and a professor at Florida State University's College of Law. He argues that one of the philosophical foundations beneath educators' calls for academic freedom is the argument that students are best served in an milieu of open and wide-ranging scholarship (Weidner, 2003, p. 445). Other scholars argue that the freedom to realize and criticize is an essential component of our democratic culture. educational institutions are the primary avenue to knowledgeable citizens, therefore, the freedom of teachers and students to examine and criticize is one of the freedoms most deserving of protection (Weidner, 2003, p. 445).

Anonymous. (8 April 2004). conscientious objector legislators kill anti-diversity training measure. The Associated Press. Accessed online 8 April 2004: <"http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/news.aspx?id=13150">.

It is without question that academic freedom will always be a balance act between numerous competing interests. This paper should demonstrate, however, that America's legal frame has provided and continues to provide a voice for any person in academia who believes that their freedom is being curtailed. It then necessarily becomes the avocation of the courts to weigh the competing interests of a fun
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