Ethics, Academic Freedom and Politics

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Ethics, Academic Freedom and Politics

• Raphael Cohen-Almagor

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Lecture Plan

• Section 1 -- Introduction
• Section 2 -- Guiding principles, especially
  professionalism
• Section 3 -- Academic mission
• Section 4 - What might compromise academic
  freedom?
• Section 5 - The threat of commercialization
• Section 6 Plagiarism
• Section 7 Freedom of extramural expression
• Section 8 Academic boycott

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Introduction

• Academic freedom is a subset of freedom of
  expression.
• It is about free speech in academic setting.
• It includes freedom of inquiry, freedom of
  association, and freedom of publication.
• The term "academic freedom" has traditionally had
  two applications - to the freedom of the teacher
  and to that of the student.

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Questions

• Can an academic teach everything?
• What kinds of pressures do we face?
• To what extent do current trends regarding the
  commercialisation of research undermine
  fundamental academic principles such as academic
  freedom, integrity in research, openness, and
  serving the public interest?
• Are there any limits on freedom of extramural
  expression?

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Guiding Principles

• Conscience people should be true to their
  conscience, able to express their mind
  notwithstanding what other are thinking.
• The Millian Truth Principle search for truth
  Galileo Galilei
• Responsibility
• Transparency and honesty be aware and alert
  others of compromising factors and interests
• Independence thus student papers should raise
  their own funding.

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Professionalism

• Professionalism we expect certain standards to
  be met because of the academic setting.
• The function of academic freedom is not to
  liberate individual professors from all forms of
  institutional regulation, but instead to ensure
  that faculty within the university are free to
  engage in professionally competent forms of
  inquiry and teaching, which are necessary for the
  realization of the social purposes of the
  university.

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Professionalism

• Academics are professional experts in the
  production of knowledge.
• Thus they cannot teach the flat earth theory and
  other falsehoods in an academic setting.
• Academic freedom is not an individual right.
• Context Protocols of the Elders of Zion, not in
  a course on Jewish civilization yes in a course
  on hate and bigotry
• Organized institutions of peer-review and faculty
  self-regulation on the basis of a professed
  skepticism of professional norms.

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Professionalism

• The conception of academic freedom as an
  individual right seems superficially attractive
  because it appears to promise greater security
  for academic dissent.
• But in reality it would risk undercutting the
  professional norms necessary for the external
  defense of academic freedom.
• Without this defense there are forms of political
  power that might be ready to seize control of the
  academic community.

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Professionalism
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Professionalism
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Professionalism

• You did not expect me to show you an empty slide.

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Mission

• The mission of a university is multi-dimensional.
• The importance of academic freedom is most
  clearly perceived in the light of the purpose for
  which universities exist.
• These are three in number
• To promote inquiry and advance the sum of human
  knowledge.
• To provide general instruction to the students.
• To develop experts for various branches of the
  public service.

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Mission

• In other words, academic freedom is about
  teaching, research and extra-mural utterance and
  action.
• Just like teaching and research, the service
  mission can entail a wide variety of activities.
• University should be the hotbed for new ideas.
• Academia is the only profession that is able to
  reflect, scrutinize, and develop long-term
  processes (to be distinguished from journalism,
  for instance).

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Mission

• Scholars must be absolutely free not only to
  pursue their investigations but to declare the
  results of their researches, no matter where they
  may lead them or to what extent they may come
  into conflict with accepted opinion.
• To be of use to the legislator or the
  administrator, they must enjoy their complete
  confidence in the disinterestedness of their
  conclusions.

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What might undermine academic freedom?

• Business, money
• Pressure
• your supervisor,
• Superiors (Chairperson, Dean, senior admin),
• peers,
• Business (university donors),
• politics,
• social conformity

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What might undermine academic freedom?

• Jack Kevorkian - UCLA
• Textbooks.

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Compromising effects - Patronage

• In some countries, most notably Germany, Austria
  and Italy, it is almost impossible to receive a
  position on the basis of merit alone.
• Camps you support my candidate I support yours.
• People are not free to express their minds.

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Compromising effects - Biography writing

• Authorized v. Unauthorized biographies of living
  politicians, judges and other decision-makers.
• Compromising effects.

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Compromising effects real politics

• Conscience v. real politic
• Scholars who research contemporary China
• Professor Yitzhak Shichor
• Professor Ross Terrill
• http//almagor.blogspot.com

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Compromising effects Business

• The story of Edward A. Ross who advocated in
  1900 against the importation of cheap Asian
  labor.
• He had so profoundly distressed the Founder and
  proprietor of Stanford University, Mrs. Leland
  Stanford, who wrote president David Starr Jordan
  
• I must confess I am weary of Professor Ross, and
  I think he ought not to be retained at Stanford
  University. . . . I trust that before the close
  of this semester Professor Ross will have
  received notice that he will not be re-engaged
  for the new year.
• Jordan obeyed his instructions. Ross was fired.

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Commercialization

• Some universities feel that they have a
  responsibility towards the socio-economic region
  they are located in.
• A responsibility which may involve helping to
  enhance the regions economic development, not
  only by education but also in other ways.
• Many universities accept funding from industry
  and engage in commercial activities.

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Commercialization

• Results of academic research which, not so long
  ago, would have been made available in the public
  domain for other researchers to build on, are
  increasingly becoming the subjects of various
  kinds of intellectual property rights,
  particularly (but not only) in biomedical,
  chemical and engineering fields.
• The increase in industry funding of academic
  research lead to the hampering of research, the
  skewing of research priorities, and the risk of
  conflicts of interest threatening the integrity
  of research.

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Commercialization

• Universities are becoming too business-like.
• Admittedly, it could be argued that additional
  income for the universities makes them less
  dependent on governments, but an unhealthy
  dependence on industry may be more problematic in
  terms of potential threats to academic freedom.
• Universities like businesses compete with each
  other, make money and use their patents against
  other universities.

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Commercialization and Ethics

• Tel Aviv University Buchman School of Law
• Could be worse, I imagine Tel Aviv School of
  Morality.

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Plagiarism

• Twenty years ago, plagiarism was seen as an
  isolated misdemeanour, restricted to a small
  group of mostly students.
• Today it is widely recognized as a ubiquitous,
  systemic issue, compounded by the accessibility
  of content in the virtual environment.
• Companies make money by selling academic papers
  to those who wish to pay their way.
• Papers are tailor-made to ones needs and
  abilities.

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Plagiarism

• This might create a two-tier education system
  One for those who work and acquire education
• another for those who pay to advance to the next
  stage in life.

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Freedom of Extramural Expression

• Freedom of extramural expression refers to a
  professors freedom to speak in public in her
  role as a citizen in ways that are unrelated to
  professional expertise.
• An example might be a professor of chemistry who
  elects to speak out against the war in
  Afghanistan.
• The issue for analysis is whether and how
  professors should be immune from sanction for
  such speech, even if it causes damage to the
  university that employs them.

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Freedom of Extramural Expression

• It is neither possible nor desirable to deprive a
  college professor of the political rights
  vouchsafed to every citizen.
• The American Statement of Principles on Academic
  Freedom and Tenure of 1940 said

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American Statement of Principles on Academic
Freedom and Tenure

• College and university teachers are citizens,
  members of a learned profession, and officers of
  an education institution. When they speak or
  write as citizens, they should be free from
  institutional censorship or discipline, but their
  special position in the community imposes special
  obligations. As scholars and educational
  officers, they should remember that the public
  may judge their profession and their institution
  by their utterances. Hence they should at all
  times be accurate, should exercise appropriate
  restraint, should show respect for the opinions
  of others, and should make very effort to
  indicate that they are not speaking for the
  institution.

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Holocaust denial

• Professor Arthur Butz, Northwestern University,
  uses university server to put on a blog denying
  the Holocaust.
• In violation of the principles outlined above,
  shaking off the special obligations not
  accurate, without appropriate restraint,
  confusing between him and his institution.
• Thats on purpose To confer legitimacy on his
  ideas.
• Universities can insulate themselves from such a
  threat by categorically disclaim any
  responsibility for the extramural expression of
  their faculty.

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Political Boycott

• Academics should not discriminate against
  colleagues on grounds of race, sex, religion,
  national or ethnic group, or other personal
  characteristics.
• The story of Dr. Miriam Shlesinger.

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Thank you