Note from the Editor

For too long, public discussion about cultural issues has been treated as a war rather than a debate. As a result, all sides have tended to ignore violations of academic freedom when the victims are their ideological opponents. For that reason, Teachers for a Democratic Culture has issued this report an effort to address the real problems of academic freedom that affect all teachers and students, no matter what their views.

This report is opinionated. It makes judgments about what the most serious threats to academic freedom are. But it also takes notice of the threats posed by both the left and the right. We hope that it will provoke a debate about the meaning of academic freedom and how we can protect it.

This report on academic freedom is far from comprehensive. Many incidents of censorship are never reported to watchdog groups or publicized in the media. This is particularly--but not exclusively--true of progressive faculty and students, since there is no network of left-wing organizations and newspapers devoted to reporting examples of ideological intolerance, while many groups on the right (including Accuracy in Academia, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, National Association of Scholars, Individual Rights Foundation, Center for Individual Rights) are heavily funded to protect the rights of conservative faculty and students.

For that reason, this report on academic freedom does not attempt to list every possible example of intolerance like the People for the American Way's annual report on censorship in elementary and secondary education. TDC does not have the resources to investigate every case of censorship, and a mere list would do little to address the leading issues of academic freedom.

Other organizations, most notably the American Association of University Professors, are devoted to the protection of academic freedom, but we believe the issue is too important for only one group to focus on it. The AAUP provides a valuable service in carefully examining specific cases involving academic freedom and censuring institutions guilty of violating it. But the AAUP reports are inadequate for a comprehensive look at what is happening across the country. The AAUP only reports on a small number of incidents, and maintains confidentiality about the complaints it receives, preferring quiet and informal resolutions to public exposure of a widespread problem. Although this is often useful to the individual complainants, it tends to obscure threats to academic freedom.

It is necessary for all professional and advocacy organizations concerned about higher education to speak out in defense of academic freedom. We believe that every professional organization should have a committee on academic freedom to address charges of censorship involving members of their discipline. Public scrutiny is essential to pressure colleges and universities which are inclined to limit academic freedom.

We hope this report will be the beginning of an important debate on academic freedom, and the first of many annual reports tracking the state of academic freedom. We encourage your comments on this report, and we urge you to let us know about any controversies involving academic freedom.

--John K. Wilson