Part of the acclaimed Higher Ed Leadership Essentials series, this
book surveys academic freedom's history and its application in today's
universities.
Academic freedom is once again at the epicenter of the crisis in higher
education. A community college instructor in Iowa is pressured to resign
after his pro-antifa social media comments garner vicious harassment
that administrators find threatening to campus safety. A tenured biology
professor at a college on Long Island is threatened with dismissal
because she allegedly grades students too strictly. And in the wake of
the COVID-19 pandemic, a conservative activist calls on his followers to
take advantage of online classes to send "any and all videos of blatant
indoctrination" to his organization so that it might expose and
blacklist "leftist professors."
These incidents from the 2019-20 academic year represent only the tip of
the iceberg. Academic freedom, long heralded as a core value of American
higher education, may now be in as much danger as at any time the 1950s.
But what is "academic freedom"? A value upheld for one's supporters (but
not one's opponents) when discussing a polarizing controversy? Or a
narrow claim of privilege by a professorial elite, immune from public
accountability?
In this concise and compelling book, Henry Reichman, who chaired the
American Association of University Professors' Committee on Academic
Freedom and Tenure for nearly a decade, mounts a rigorous defense of
academic freedom and its principal means of protection: the system of
academic tenure. Probing academic freedom's role in multiple contexts,
Reichman draws on a wealth of historical and contemporary examples to
offer the first comprehensive introduction to the concept in all its
manifestations. Elucidating its sometimes complicated meanings, Reichman
argues that academic freedom--like its cousin, freedom of speech--cannot
easily be defined but, instead, emerges from the contextual application
of guiding principles developed and modified over time. He also explores
why the rise of contingent faculty employment represents the gravest
current threat to academic freedom; reveals how academic freedom is
complicated by both fiercely polarized campus environments and the
emergence of social media that extend speech beyond the lecture halls of
the academy; and touches on the rights of students in and out of class,
including treatment of student protest movements.
