Random Topic Rant, Beta Today's topic is: Academic Freedom! My view of academic freedom (AF) is based on the idea that AF is not a right held by faculty, but a management decision made by the university. Why is it not a right? Well, why should it be a right? Faculty are employed by the university. They are paid money in order to do stuff for the university. That's how employment works in general. Why, in addition to being paid, should they be able to do whatever they want to do? Employees have no such right. Employment is essentially suspending your right to do whatever you want in exchange for pay. This is not to say that universities shouldn't have AF. University administrators don't know enough to tell researchers what to do. A part of research, in fact, is finding out what there is to research. Therefore, it makes good management sense for the university to provide AF for their researchers. It is not, however, an immutable right. If taking away AF from faculty has a benefit that outweighs the loss of effective research, then there's no reason why the university shouldn't be able to do so. The uproar over losing a "right" makes no sense. For example, in teaching, as opposed to research, it is perfectly reasonable for the university to ask that teachers apply certain guidelines to how they teach. Telling teachers "No indoctrination" is not trampling their rights, it's asking them to maintain educational standards which make the education of students more effective. Geez, I'm bored. Anyone have any requests for interesting random topic rants? posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 12/07/2004 01:46:00 PM # Comments (0) . . .
