A History of Academic Freedom in America

Illinois State University ISU ReD: Research and eData Theses and Dissertations 9-23-2014 A History of Academic Freedom in America John Karl Wilson Illinois State University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd Part of the Higher Education Administration Commons, and the Higher Education and Teaching Commons Recommended Citation Wilson, John Karl, "A History of Academic Freedom in America" (2014). Theses and Dissertations. 257. https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/257 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ISU ReD: Research and eData. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ISU ReD: Research and eData. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A HISTORY OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN AMERICA John K. Wilson 275 Pages December 2014 This study explores the history of academic freedom in America through the focus of three interpretive models--the Gentleman Scientist Model, the Liberty Model, and the Professional Model—to show how the concept evolved over the past century. It examines violations of academic freedom, AAUP statements, and debates about the meaning of academic freedom to show how it remains a contested concept. It concludes that by studying the origins and changes in the idea of academic freedom in America, current controversies can be better understood. A HISTORY OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN AMERICA JOHN K. WILSON A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Educational Administration and Foundations ILLINOIS STATE UNIVERSITY 2014 Copyright 2014 John K. Wilson A HISTORY OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN AMERICA JOHN K. WILSON COMMITTEE MEMBERS: Mohamed Nur-Awaleh, Chair Victor Devinatz Edward Hines Phyllis McCluskey-Titus ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my many teachers, especially those in the Educational Administration and Foundations department at Illinois State University. I also must thank the members of my dissertation committee for their patience and willingness to offer thoughtful criticism, including Phyllis McCluskey-Titus, Victor Devinatz, Edward Hines (who initially served as chair), and Mohamed Nur-Awaleh, who helped guide me through the final process. I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, Kay and Thomas Wilson. J.K.W. i CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i CONTENTS ii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY 1 Statement of the Problem 5 Purpose of the Study 5 Research Questions 5 Conceptual Framework 6 Significance of the Study 7 Methodology 8 Limitations of the Study 13 Organization of the Study 14 II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE 17 The Gentleman Scientist Model 19 The Professional Model 24 Extramural Utterances and the Professional Model 27 Stanley Fish and the Professional Model 30 Fish’s Five Schools of Academic Freedom 32 Defining the Liberty Model 38 The Uniqueness of Academic Freedom 41 Professional Norms and the Liberty Model 45 Evaluation and Punishment under the Liberty Model 46 The AAUP and the Three Models 54 Institutional Academic Freedom 55 The Denial Model 57 The Revolutionary Model 58 Analyzing Academic Freedom 62 Summary 63 ii III. ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN THE EARLY COLLEGES 67 Campus Revolts 73 Freedom and Slavery on Campus 74 God and Man on the 19th Century Campus 77 The Fight Over Evolution 78 Academic Freedom and the Research University 80 Lehrfreiheit Comes to America 81 Economics and the Fight over Academic Freedom 85 The Bemis Affair 88 Economic Orthodoxy in the American University 96 The Case of Edward Ross 99 Defending Academic Freedom in Wisconsin 101 The Culture of Academic Conformity 105 Politics and the Rise of the Public University 106 Academic Freedom and the Fear of the Masses 108 The Idea of Academic Freedom in the Early 20th Century 115 Nicholas Murray Butler and Academic Freedom at Columbia 121 Dewey and Academic Freedom 123 Mecklin and the Rise of the AAUP 128 Creating the AAUP 129 The AAUP’s 1915 Declaration of Principles 132 The AAUP and Professional Standards 141 Fighting the Union Label 143 The AAUP’s Idea of Academic Freedom 148 IV. ACADEMIC FREEDOM FROM 1915-1940 149 Scott Nearing, From Economics to War 149 World War I and the War on Academic Freedom 151 The AAUP’s Wartime Report on Academic Freedom 153 The Consequences of Wartime Repression 159 Academic Freedom in the 1920s 166 Evolution Under Fire Again: The Scopes Trial 175 Goose-Stepping Through Academia 176 The AAUP and the Rise of Tenure 178 Professors and Race Relations 181 The Anti-Subversive Crusade of the 1930s 183 Bertrand Russell and Campus Morality 192 The 1940 Statement of Principles 196 V. MCCARTHYISM AND ACADEMIC FREEDOM 198 The Good War: World War II 198 The McCarthy Era on Campus 199 Loyalty Oaths and the Communist Threat 201 iii The Attack on Dissent 202 The McCarthy Crusade 207 William F. Buckley's Yale 212 The AAC Joins the Crusade 214 McCarthyism and the Gentleman Scientist Model 216 Academic Freedom After McCarthyism 219 Sexual McCarthyism 220 How Leo Koch and His Letter Changed Academic Freedom 224 How Leo Koch Altered the AAUP 232 Censure of the University of Illinois 233 Koch in Court 235 The Critics of Koch 237 The 1964 Statement on Extramural Utterances 239 1966 Statement on Professional Ethics 243 Revisiting the 1940 Statement 246 The 1970 Interpretive Comments 247 The 1970 Statement on Freedom and Responsibility 251 The Revolution in Academic Freedom 252 VI. CONCLUSION: OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY, IMPLICATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 256 Overview of the Study 256 Statement of the Problem 256 Research Questions 257 Summary and Conclusions 257 Future Research 259 Race, Gender, and Academic Freedom 259 Additional Areas for Future Research 261 Implications for the Study 263 REFERENCES 267 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY Perhaps no value is so fundamental to universities as academic freedom. As O’Neil (2000) observed, “The subject of academic freedom has been a central theme throughout the history of American higher education” (19). In a similar vein, Menand (1996) called academic freedom “the key legitimizing concept of the entire enterprise” of higher education (4). Yet the phrase “academic freedom” is more often invoked ceremonially than deeply understood. There is a sharp difference between the ideal of academic freedom and its practical application. In contrast to the first half of the 20th century, today academic freedom as a concept is almost universally praised and endorsed. Yet disagreements about the meaning and practice of academic freedom are more intense than ever (Rothman, Woessner, and Kelly-Woessner, 2010, 172). The evolution of academic freedom in America during the past century, from a virtually unknown concept to a widely embraced principle of higher education, has never been fully examined. It is only by exploring the changes in higher education, and the fight of professors for their rights, that the rise of academic freedom to its preeminent position can be understood fully. Academic freedom “has become its own myth: an icon to be revered above all else, an article of faith, an essentialist doctrine bearing pontifical 1 force” (Pavlich & Kahn, 2000, ix). However, academic freedom is a pontifical force without a pontiff; the only widely-accepted, authoritative definer of academic freedom is the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Yet, even the AAUP depends upon social sanction to enforce academic freedom rules. And the AAUP maintains a precarious balance between being a faculty union and a defender of academic freedom. There have always been critics of the idea of academic freedom. In the first legal decision to mention the term, a New York court in 1940 ordered the firing of philosopher Bertrand Russell from City College of New York. The judge declared: “Academic freedom cannot teach that abduction is lawful nor that adultery is attractive and good for the community” (Kay v. Board of Higher Education, 1940). William F. Buckley (1951) denounced academic freedom for professors in his classic, McCarthy Era tract, God and Man at Yale. Buckley wrote, "academic freedom must mean the freedom of men and women to supervise the educational activities and aims of the schools they oversee and support” (190). Herbert London, leader of the National Association of Scholars (NAS) in 1987, declared that “Academic freedom has become a refuge for radicals” (London, 1987). Les Csorba of Accuracy in Academia claimed, “academic freedom on college campuses is nothing more than a useful device which gives license to some people and silences others” (Csorba, 1988). Economist Thomas Sowell noted, “Tenure and academic freedom have not protected individual diversity of thought on campus but instead have protected those who choose to impose the prevailing ideology through classroom brainwashing of students and storm trooper tactics against outside speakers who might challenge this 2 ideology” (Sowell, 1993, 229). Thomas Short (1993) of the NAS wrote, “We need to explain that academic freedom, which ordinarily requires independence from outside interference, calls for just such interference when that freedom is being subverted from within” (60). Conservatives like Short (1993) depicted the past as a golden age of free speech: "Having enjoyed almost untrammeled freedom of thought and expression for three and a half centuries...American colleges and universities are now muzzling themselves." But the history of academic freedom in American higher education reflects a much different story, where colleges and universities did not "successfully fend off efforts by outsiders" to "constrain that freedom"(Short, 1993), but often failed to resist the influences of state legislators, alumni, and the general public, and also restrained freedom on their own initiative. Rather than a sharp decline from the "good old days," colleges and universities today have more freedom of thought today than at any other point in their history (Wilson, 1995, Gerber, 2014).

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