Assignment

The Los Angeles Times reported in January that Andrew Jones, an graduate of UCLA, was offering $100 to any student who would tape and submit notes from a list of  professors’ lectures. In the article “Campus Activist Goes Right at ‘Em’,” by staff writer Stuart Silverstein, Jones claims that many professors preach a liberal political viewpoint, often in classes that have nothing to do with politics. He offered the reward in order to create a published list documenting the views of those professors he identifies as political liberals and who, he claims, indoctrinate their students instead of instructing them in the subject of the class.

Academic freedom is considered an essential right for colleges and universities that promotes an open and critical dialogue necessary to advance a student’s learning. According to “Academic Freedom” published in Current Issues:

The basic principles of academic freedom in the United States were first set forth in 1915 by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and were refined in 1940 by the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges. Their Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure identifies three aspects of academic freedom: freedom in research and publication, freedom in the classroom, and freedom from censorship or discipline by the university when a professor speaks or writes as a private citizen. Many colleges and universities in the United States have incorporated these principles into their own bylaws, or governing documents. (1) 

Since you are beginning your studies in higher education, you might ask yourself how much you know about our right to free speech and how it affects education. What is academic freedom? Should a student or professor have the right to say or promote any idea, theory, or ideology? Or, since professors clearly wield the authority of the institution and the power of the grade, should there be some restraints on the students’ and the faculty’s free expression in order to preserve a productive learning environment? Like all questions, there are no simple answers.

The semester’s research topic is academic freedom. Write an 8 to 10 page paper in which you state and argue your position. Your paper should cite a variety of sources which support your stance on this topic. Sources must include at least one book, and one peer reviewed periodical.

(1) Source Citation: "Academic Freedom." Current Issues. 4 vols. Macmillan Reference USA, 2003.
Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 05 February 2006
<http://galenet.galegroup.com.ezproxy.cuyamaca.edu/servlet/OVRC>