Academic Freedom and Free Speech

The Relation between Academic Freedom and Free Speech

Introduction

• The common belief is that academic freedom and free speech work together in universities, where academic freedom safeguards academic discussions, and free speech protects other public dialogues. However, this view is challenged on the basis that free speech sometimes hinders academic activities.
• One argument against this challenge suggests that free speech on campus can boost the university's academic goals. Another states that universities have a democratic role that requires free speech on campus. Both justifications have flaws.
• Academic freedom is thought by some to be the same as free speech within academic environments. However, modern academic understanding recognizes that academic freedom is different from free speech.
• The 'standard view' is that academic freedom and free speech are distinct but complementary. Academic freedom protects teaching and research, while free speech covers public lectures, debates, student meetings, protests, political advocacy, and journalism.
• Academic discourse should be free from ideological constraints but subject to content-based restrictions that ensure intellectual quality and integrity.
• Providing universities with discriminating, intellectually regulated environments aligns with the university's proper social-political function. They do not need to become open marketplaces of ideas.

Two Ideas of a University

Differences between Academic Freedom and Free Speech

• Free speech offers special protection from regulation or suppression. It extends beyond normal conduct immunities and requires a stronger justification to restrict speech for a social goal. It also means policies cannot suppress speech because the thoughts are bad, wrong, offensive, or false.
• Upholding free speech involves aversion to regulation based on communication content, distrusting the government's ability to distinguish truth from falsehood.
• Academic freedom provides special protection for communicative activities from a select group of speakers. It enables academics to set the terms of their work within certain limits, including research, publication, and teaching content.
• Academic freedom protects academics' professional conduct from government, administrators, and external groups. It is narrower than free speech but is institutionalized via tenure and contractual arrangements.
• Academic freedom is expertise-based and allows scholars to teach and research as they see fit, subject to quality controls based on professional standards.
• Academic freedom empowers academics to regulate speech in a content-discriminatory way, which is inherent in academic work.
• Academic work involves evaluating the quality of ideas and arguments based on intellectual standards and rewarding the meritorious while withholding rewards from the subpar.
• Academic freedom protects academics when performing this work and shields them from external interference.
• Robert Post notes that continuous peer judgment is incompatible with First Amendment doctrines requiring viewpoint neutrality.
• A society that embraces free speech shows an aversion to groupthink and socially mandated orthodoxy. The goal includes giving every voice a hearing and a reluctance to suppress ideas regarded as badly informed, regardless of their merit.
• To advance a university's purpose, academics should not avoid content-based speech restrictions in their professional work, which differs from a free speech ethic.
• Academic freedom and free speech coexistence requires complex negotiation because the communicative climates in the university’s free speech zone and professional zone are different.

Illustrating the Conflict: Ben Stein at the University of Vermont

• In 2009, Ben Stein's invitation to speak at the University of Vermont (UVM) commencement faced a letter-writing campaign due to his views on intelligent design creationism.
• Critics felt Stein lacked qualifications and his invitation disrespected the scientific academy.
• UVM's president, Daniel Fogel, treated the situation using academic standards, marginalizing ideas due to their dubious content.
• UVM chose to prioritize its epistemic goals. This was criticized by free speech advocates who felt the institution should focus on setting up setting up a platform for Stein's opinions.
• The university's mission involves discovering and disseminating knowledge through regimented methods of inquiry and gives power to experts to amplify/suppress viewpoints based on merit relative to standards.
• Strict moderation helps advance biological science over the long term. Experts' intellectual energies are not taxed by complaints from those who do not recognize expertise.
• Biological scientists suppress ignorant ideas within academic settings, because they achieve epistemic aims by postponing some of the tasks involved in the pursuit of those aims.
• It aligns with the mission of a university to cancel a talk by someone like Ben Stein based on an appraisal of his views.
• A proper university has a communicative climate characterized by rigor, thoughtfulness, and deference to expertise like a lecture theater or faculty seminar. This can be invoked in the defense of university