A Brief History of Academic Freedom Geoffrey R

WHO'S AFRAID OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM?

EDITED BY AKEEL BILGRAMI & JONATHAN R. COLE

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Who's afraid of academic freedom? /edited by Akeel Bilgrami and Jonathan R. Cole. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN q~8-o-z3i-i688o-q (cloth : alk. paper) i. Academic freedom —United States. a. Academic freedom —Moral and ethical aspects—United States. 3. Teaching, Freedom of—United States. I. Bilgrami, Akeel, i950— II. Cole, Jonathan.

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Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America c io9876 54321

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References to websites (URLs) were accurate at the, time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. 1 A BRIEF HISTORY OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM GEOFFREY R. STONE

s COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY professor and former provost Jonathan R. Cole observed in his work The Great American University, "the pro tection of ideas and expression from external political interference A 1 or repression became absolutely fundamental to the university." Indeed, it is in no small measure our deep commitment to academic freedom that has allowed American universities to be "great." It is imperative, though, that we never take academic freedom for granted, for the freedomof thought and inquiry we enjoy today in the academy is the product of centuries of struggle, and in the firstpart of this essay I will briefly trace the history of academic freedom, because unless we know how we got to where we are today we may not understand just how unique and potentially fragile our academic freedom reallyis. In the finalpart of this essay, I will offer a few thoughts about the challenges of the future. Although the struggle for academic freedom can be traced at least as far back as Socrates's eloquent defense of himself against the charge that he corrupted the youth of Athens, the modern history of this struggle, as it has played out in the university context, begins with the advent of universities, as we know them today, in the twelfth century. In the social structure of the Middle Ages, universities were centers of power and prestige. They were largely autonomous institutions, conceived in the spirit of the guilds. Their members-whom we today would describe as their faculty-elected their own officialsand set their own rules. Fl BRIEF HISTORY OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM '. `::i 2 There were, however, sharp limits on tl~e scope of scholarly inquiry. There existed a hard core of authoz-itatively established doctrine that vas made oblig~ltory on all scholars and teachers. It was expected that each new accre- tion of knowledge would he consistent ~-vith a single system of truth, and-gored in Christian dogma. As scholars and teachers graduaIly becalz~e n~iore interested in science and began to giicstion some of the filndamental precepts of religious t doctrine, he conflict be~t~veen scielztific inquiry and religious authority grew intense. When Csalil~o published lus heretical telescopic observations, for example, lie was listed as a suspect in the secret books of the Inquisition, threatened witl~l torture, compelled pt~iblicly ~to disavotiv his views, and imprisoned for the remainder of his life. Throughout the se~~enteerrth centluy, university life remained largely bounded by the medieval cturiculum. Real freedozzz of thought w~~ls neither practiced nor professed. As one statement of the then prevailing ideal point, put the tlzc teacher was "not to permit any novel opizzions to be taught," nor was 11e to teach "anything contrary ~o prevalent opinions."' T his was the general attitude in I~merica, as well as in Europe, and freedom of irlqui~~y izz America was severely limited by the constraints of religious doctrine until «yell into the nineteenth centtuy. In 165}, for eYarnple, vard's Har- president vas Forced to resign bec~ltiise he denied the scriptural validity of infant ba~tiszn. `~'he 1~ltter part of the eighteenth century sa~~ a brief period of relative secu- larization of the American college as part of the enlightenment. By openiizg up new fields of study alld by introducing ~l note of skepticism ai d inquiry, the trend toward secular learning l~eg~~~ gradually to liberate college teacher work. The of science introduced foz- the first time the discovery, rather than mere transmission, the of lazowledge into the cl~issroom. This s~1ift vas short-lived, however, for the opening decades of the nineteenth eentuxy brought a significant retrogression. This was due r largely to the ise of religious fundamentalism in the early years of i:he nineteenth century, ~vlzich led to a sharp cotulterattael< against tIze skepticism of the nzentand L;nlighten- aconcerted effort on tl-~e part of the Protestarrt churches to reassert their control over intellectual life. As a result of this developnZent, the American college in the first l~lalf of tl~e nineteenth century once again fou~zd itself deeply centered in It lool

of living. Ir was highly patemllistic and authoritari~n. .Its emphasis on tradi- tion~l subjects, mechanical drill, and rigid discipline stymied free discussion and squelched cre~ltivity. 'Three factors in particular stifled academic freedom in phis era. First, the college teacher was regarded first and forez~iost as a teacher. Because academic honors hinged entirely on teaching, there vas no incentive or tune for research. Indeed, it was generally agreed that research was Positively harmful to teachil7g. In 1857, for eti~lmple, the trustees of Columbia College attributed the low state of the college to the fact that some of its professors "wrote books." Second, educators of this era generally regarded the college student as intellectually naive and morally cleficien~t "Stlmping in," with all that phrase irriplies, was the predominant pedagogical method, and learning was under- stood to mean little more than nzen~orization and repetitive, mechanical dri1L Third, freeclon~ of inquiry and te~chir~ig was smothered by the prevailing theory of "doctrinal moralism," which assumed that the worth of an idea should be judged by its moral advantages, an attitude that is ~n~lthemz to scholarly inquiry. The most important moz-al problem in f~merica in the first half of the nineteenth century was, of course, slavery. In both the Noah and the Sotrth, colleges rigidly eziforced their views on this subject. By the i83os, the mind of the Sotrth had closed on this issue. When i~ became known, for example, that a professor at the University of North Carolina was sympathetic to the 1856 Republican presidenti~ll clndidate, the faculty repudi~lted his views, the students burned hiin in effigy, and he was discharged by the trustees. The situ- ~tion in the North was not much better. The president of Franklin College was dismissed because he was not an abolitionist, and Judge L;dward Loring was dismissed froixz a lectureship at the Harvard La~v School because, in his capacity as a federal judge, he had enforced the fugitive slave law. Between 18~o and zgoo, there was a genuine revoltrtion in American higher education. Dramatic reforms, such as graclu~te instruction and scientific courses, were implemented, and greet new universities were established at Cornell, Jol~~ins Hopkins, Stanford, and Chichigher education. This was an extraordinary departure for a system that I~reviously hack ~irned primarily at cultural conser- v~tion. Two forces iz1 particular I~iastened this shift. The first was the impact of Darwil~isin. The seco~ld was the influence of the Germ~ln tiiniversit~~. A BRIEF HISTORY OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM 4

By the early i8~os, Darwin's theory of evolution was no longer a disputed ypothesis h within the American scientific community. Btrt as scientific doubts subsided, religious opposition rose. Determined efforts were made exclude proponents of Darwinism whenever possible. The disputes were often quite bitter. This conflict broug~lt together like-minded teachers, scientists, scholars, and philosophers who believed in evolution and who developed new stan- dards of academic inquiry. In their view, to dissent was not to obstruct, but to enlighten. T he great debate over Darwinism went far beyond the substantive problem of whether evolution was true. It represented a profound clash between conflicting cultures, intellectual styles, and academic values. It pitted the clerical against the scientific; the sectresearch university attracted individuals of outstanding abilities, rather than mere pedagogues and disciplizzarians. The German professor enjoyed freedom of teaching and freedom of inquiry. The German system held that this freedom was the A BRIEF HISTORY OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM i.':' S distinctive prerogative of t1~e academic profession and that it was the essential condition of a university. Indeed, the single greatest contribution of the German university to the American conception of academic freedoz~i was the assumption that aca- clemic freedom defined the true university. As William Rainey Harper, the first president of the University of Chicago, observed in i8ga: "When for any reason ... the administration of ~a universit~~] attempts to dislodge a professor because of his political or religioLis sentiments, at that moment the institution has ceased to be a university."> Although American universities borrowed heavily from the German in this era, there evolved two critical differences between the American and German conceptions of academic freedom. First, whereas the German conception encouraged the professor to convizlce his students of the wisdom of his own views, the American conception held that the proper stance for professors in the cl~issroor7i ivas one of netrtrality on controversial issues. As President Charles Eliot of Harvard declared at the dime: "The notion that education consists in the authoritative inculcation of what the teacher deems true ... is intolerable in a university."~ Second, the German conception of academic freedom clistinguislzecl sharply between freedom within and freedom otrtsicle the university. Within the walls of the ac~dezny, the German conception allowed a wide latitude of utterance. But outside the university, the German view assumed that professors were obliged to be circumspect and nonpolitical. American professors rejected this limitation. Drawing upon the more general American conception of freedoz~z of speech, they insisted on partici- pating actively iii the wren A~t the University of Virginia, ~ professor was discharged because he had made a speech predicting tl~e ~var would not nialce the world safe for democracy. ~1nd at Coli~n~bia, the board of trustees latulched a general campaign of investigation to determine whether doctrines that tended to encourage a s~~irit of disloyalty were being taught at the university. Similar issues arose again, with a vengeance, during the age of McC~rthy. In the late iq~}os and 195os, many if not most universities excluded those accused of Communist syi~zpa~thies from participation in Liniversity life. The University of Washington fired three tenured professors, the University of Cal- ifornia dismissed thirty-one professors who refused to sign ~1n azlti-Commt.inis~ oath, purge their institutions of alleged subversives. Most recently, the first Bush administration tortured academic freedom in the lc~gos by restricting research into certain "sensitive" areas; implementing restrictive visa policies for prospective researchers, students, ~lnd speakers; pro- hibi~ing the use of fedez- al ftilzds for embryonic stem cell rese~lrch, essentially 1

A BRIEF I-I ISTORY OF F\CADEAAIC FREEDOM 7

on religious grounds; and 1rl~lnipulatin~ the nation's peer reeie~v system for political ends. So, what can we learn from this very quick survey of ~rhe history of ac

N OTES

i. Jonzlthan R. Cole, The Great American U~z~iversi~ty: Its Rise to PreeTnineilce, Its Indis- he~lsnble National Role, Why It 1Vlust Be Protected(New York: Public,gffairs, zoio), ~}5. z. Tl~e Role of Scienti~tc Societies i~z t12e Seventeenth Cenhury (Chicago, i93g)~ ~i5~ 3. University of Chicago, Tlie President's Re{~ort, July, i8ga—July, i9oz (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, zgo3), i:Yxii. ~}. The New Yorh Teael2er, and the Americct~c Edueatio~ial Monthly (New York: J. W. Schermerhorn, i8~o), ~:iq. ~. Richard Hofstadter and Walter Metzger, The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (1\1ew Yorl:: Columbia University Press, ig55)~ 49g~ 6. Cole, The Great American University, 36i.