The University of Texas Board of Regents has released revised rules governing faculty conduct; as reported here, some of the changes are attracting attention:
The memo went out to University of Texas System presidents last month. The Board of Regents had updated its rules on faculty rights and responsibilities, and wanted to make sure that professors knew about the new code.
Much of the language was very similar to previous versions of the rules, including a section on faculty members’ rights to decide what material to cover in their classrooms. But the language — new to many scholars who had never read the old rules — soon began circulating online.
Under a section called “Freedom in the Classroom,” the policy reads: “Faculty members are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing his or her subject, but are expected not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter that has no relation to his or her subject.”
As that language spread across the Internet, some professors suggested that there was a new crackdown in the works on what goes on in faculty classrooms, apparently to pre-empt David Horowitz-style “Academic Bill of Rights” legislation to regulate faculty conduct.
These worries are, in my view, misplaced (at least if the rules are applied as written). In fact, the new language tracks rather closely the old AAUP Statement on academic freedom. Horowitz's "Academic Bill of Rights" (ABOR) includes similar language too, and if that is all it did, it would be unobjectionable. In fact, however, Horowitz's ABOR does much more than that, and it simply confuses the issues to leave anyone with the impression that Horowitz's ABOR is primarily about requiring professors to stay on-topic in class. (Shouldn't the expectation be (as I've noted before) that instructors during class-time don't spend time on any material--controversial or otherwise--that is unrelated to the subject-matter? And if it's related to the subject-matter, well, it can be as controversial as the instructor judges the subject-matter to require: "controversial" is just not a relevant category in honest intellectual inquiry.) The pathetic Sara Dogan, one of Horowitz's shills, appears in the comments section at the above site exploiting precisely this point: she says, falsely, that, "in reality it is the Academic Bill of Rights which mirrors existing-yet-unenforced AAUP and university policy."
In reality--and as we have documented repeatedly--ABOR goes way beyond anything in the AAUP principles of academic freedom; in fact, it mandates violations of the academic freedom of faculty to determine what material they teach and how they teach it; it may also mandate political intervention in the hiring and promotion practices of academic disciplines. Again, because ABOR is so badly crafted (no doubt intentionally), it also appears to insulate students from being marked down for their ignorance, if that ignorance has a religious or political or ideological foundation. In short, ABOR as actually written contemplates massive regulation of the teaching, curricular, grading, and hiring practices of faculty--which is to say that ABOR would destroy academic freedom, and destory the universities.
If ABOR were something other than an attempt by the far right to capture the one major institution in American society so far beyond its reach--namely, the universities--then it would consist of just one provision: "“Faculty members are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, and are expected to devote all of their classroom time to the subject.” End of the story. Don't expect Horowitz & co. to endorse this alternative anytime soon.
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