{"id":3686,"date":"2015-06-01T06:03:20","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T06:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=3686"},"modified":"2016-08-13T21:15:29","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T21:15:29","slug":"is-academic-freedom-a-license-to-provoke-without-consequences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/is-academic-freedom-a-license-to-provoke-without-consequences\/","title":{"rendered":"Is academic freedom a license to provoke without consequences?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bruce Barry<\/a>, Vanderbilt University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Does academic freedom entitle university professors to be as provocative as they wish when expressing their views on issues of the day?<\/p>\n

This question has come alive with three recent cases involving professors making politically charged \u2013 some would say incendiary \u2013 statements on controversial issues.<\/p>\n

Are professors just people with jobs?<\/h2>\n

The first case involves Steven Salaita, whose offer of a tenured appointment at the University of Illinois was rescinded<\/a> because of charged comments he made on Twitter last year about Israel and its actions in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Second is the case of Saida Grundy, a new professor of sociology and African-American studies at Boston University, who has been called out<\/a> for contentious tweets about race.<\/p>\n

Third is the matter of Jerry Hough, a chaired political science professor at Duke who penned<\/a> what many saw as a racist diatribe in the comments section of a New York Times editorial<\/a> about happenings in Baltimore.<\/p>\n

The details of these situations differ, but there are common threads.<\/p>\n

Each features a professor in hot water for speech delivered outside the confines of academic employment. Each involves expression that, while being objectionable to some, is constitutionally protected speech. Each has aroused the ire of stakeholders, such as students, colleagues, alumni and other interest groups.<\/p>\n

And as a result, each has forced university leaders to wrestle with a three-way collision involving academic freedom, free expression and institutional reputation.<\/p>\n

These professors \u2013 like all of us in tenure-track academic appointments \u2013 are employees with jobs at universities that pay their salaries.<\/p>\n

So, one way to view these cases is through the lens of employment.<\/p>\n

Free speech is a complex issue<\/h2>\n

Within the larger landscape of worker rights in a free society, the tension between our right to speak as citizens and obligation to our employers as job holders is contested terrain \u2013 an issue I explore at length in my book<\/a> on the legal, ethical and managerial dimensions of free speech in and around the American workplace.<\/p>\n

The legal aspects of this subject are complex:<\/p>\n

The employment-at-will system<\/a> of labor law in the US, which in the absence of a contract lets employers and workers terminate the arrangement at any time for any reason, means that private sector workers have virtually no free speech protections against employer wrath.<\/p>\n

If your boss doesn\u2019t like your off-work speech, even if it has nothing to do with your job or your employer\u2019s business, you can be fired for it. For instance, consider the Alabama woman who lost her job<\/a> in 2004 for having a John Kerry bumper sticker on her car in the factory parking lot.<\/p>\n

Workers in public sector jobs have greater protections. In situations involving government rather than a private entity as the employer, Supreme Court rulings<\/a> over several decades have upheld workers’ rights to speak on matters of public concern without risking their jobs.<\/p>\n

A handful of states give workers in the private sector some of the free speech protection that government workers have through what are known as \u201clifestyle discrimination<\/a>\u201d statutes. These are laws that bar employers from punishing workers for off-work activity, including speech, that is legal and poses no significant threat to an employer\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

But these protections for government workers (and private sector workers in a few states) are enforced only up to a point.<\/p>\n

When someone fired for his or her speech files a lawsuit, the court weighs<\/a> the worker\u2019s right to speak against the employer\u2019s right to a functional and efficient workplace. Analyses<\/a> of case law indicate that courts are inclined to tilt the balance in favor of employers.<\/p>\n

Returning to our three \u2018provocateurs\u2019<\/h2>\n

The public-private distinction is relevant to our three recent cases of \u201cprofessorial provocation.\u201d This is because one of the three \u2013 Salaita at Illinois \u2013 involves a public university.<\/p>\n

After having his job offer rescinded, Salaita filed a federal lawsuit<\/a> claiming that his rights to free speech and due process had been violated; a judge\u2019s ruling on whether Salaita\u2019s lawsuit can go forward is expected any day<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That kind of constitutionally based lawsuit isn\u2019t available to Grundy at Boston University or to Hough at Duke since their appointments are at private institutions.<\/p>\n

Although Grundy and Hough cannot claim a constitutional infringement on their rights, they can appeal to the principle of academic freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
While universities are places for ideas and free speech, they do have cautionary caveats.<\/span>
\nBrian Turner<\/a>, CC BY<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This is what distinguishes the occupation of professor from other kinds of employment: universities pledge (in the form of an implied contract<\/a>) to respect professors\u2019 free speech rights beyond what typical private sector job holders can expect, when they make academic freedom a foundational principle.<\/p>\n

How free is freedom?<\/h2>\n

Universities are happy to ordain and celebrate the lofty ideals of academic freedom, but they are also quick to couple them with cautionary caveats.<\/p>\n

At Duke (where Hough is), the faculty handbook<\/a> cedes to professors the right \u201cto speak in his or her capacity as a citizen without institutional censorship or discipline.\u201d Duke warns, however, that the right to \u201cespouse an unpopular cause\u201d carries with it \u201ca responsibility not to involve the university.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making a similar pledge, the handbook<\/a> at Boston University (where Grundy is) adds that a professor\u2019s right to speak as a citizen carries \u201cspecial obligations\u201d to be accurate, exercise restraint and respect others\u2019 opinions.<\/p>\n

With reasonable-sounding but rather vague conditions like these, universities (both public and private) have reserved the ability to impose boundaries on \u201coutrageous expression\u201d that the professor might assume is protected by academic freedom.<\/p>\n

Balancing freedom and outrage<\/h2>\n

Having crafted faculty employment policies as manifestos of mutual obligation, universities coping with professors who speak scandalously find themselves in the role of an arbiter of the boundary between freedom and responsibility.<\/p>\n

And so it was that in blocking Salaita\u2019s appointment, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees decided<\/a> that he lacks the requisite \u201cprofessional fitness to serve on the faculty.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trustees probably figure they can fend off Salaita\u2019s lawsuit \u2013 a not unreasonable expectation, to judge by a new legal analysis<\/a> showing that courts tend to side with university claims that a professor\u2019s speech disrupts its academic mission.<\/p>\n

Weighing the balance differently, Duke asserted<\/a> that Hough\u2019s comments are \u201cnoxious, offensive and have no place in civil discourse\u201d but saw the remedy as encouraging others in the community to speak out when the university\u2019s \u201cideals are challenged or undermined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boston University acted similarly, respecting<\/a> the professor\u2019s \u201cright to hold and express personal opinions\u201d while adding \u201cwe\u2019re offended by such statements.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question of when a professor\u2019s provocation becomes actionable cause for termination is a hornet\u2019s nest of subjectivity around the meaning of words like \u201coffensive\u201d or \u201cbigoted\u201d or \u201charmful\u201d or \u201crestraint.\u201d A university that chooses to act against the professor \u2013 as Illinois did against Salaita \u2013 puts itself in the uncomfortable position of having to explain what these terms mean and where lines are drawn.<\/p>\n

Instead of appeasing offended stakeholders by drawing lines in shifting sand, a more enlightened approach prioritizes a free exchange of ideas over the \u201cdubious judgment\u201d of a free-speaking professor.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the path Duke and Boston University are following: condemn the objectionable remarks while preserving the professor\u2019s freedom to make them, leaving a verdict to the court of public opinion.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Bruce Barry<\/a> is Professor of Management and Sociology at Vanderbilt University<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruce Barry, Vanderbilt University Does academic freedom entitle university professors to be as provocative as they wish when expressing their views on issues of the day? This question has come alive with three recent cases involving professors making politically charged \u2013 some would say incendiary \u2013 statements on controversial issues. Are professors just people with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":5901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3686"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3686"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5902,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3686\/revisions\/5902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}