Academic Freedom as a Civil Right

• Date: 01 September 1949
• DOI: 10.1177/106591294900200307
• Author: Kenneth C. Cole
• Published date: 01 September 1949
• Subject Matter: Articles

402

EDITORIAL

COMMENT

ACADEMIC

FREEDOM

AS

A

CIVIL

RIGHT

KENNETH

C.

COLE

University

of

Washington

OTH

civil

rights

and

academic

freedom

are

currently

much

in

the

public

eye.

They

have

been

put

there

by

various

persons

calling

themselves

liberals,

but

these

persons

have

not

always

supplied

the

public

with

clear-cut

definitions

of

what

they

mean

by

these

terms.

What

follows,

therefore,

is

more

concerned

with

uncovering

the

real

differences

in

the

points

of

view

being

expressed

under

the

same

labels

than

with

praising

or

blaming

any

of

them.

Starting,

then,

with

academic

freedom,

there

would

seem

to

be

two

versions:

Many

liberal

professors

appear

to

construe

academic

freedom

as

a

policy

of

job

insurance

sufficiently

comprehensive

to

cover

them

in

the

exercise

of

as

much

free

speech

as

is

guaranteed

against

criminal

prosecu-

tion

by

the

first

and

fourteenth

amendments.

Many

liberal

administrators,

on

the

other

hand,

seem

to

identify

academic

freedom

with

mere

absten-

tion

from

arbitrary

dismissals

and

personal

discrimination-a

kind

of

due

process

of

law

conception.

Faced

with

a

choice

between

these

positions

the

writer

would

side

with

the

&dquo;due

process

liberals&dquo;

because

they

seem

to

err

less

in

defect

of

the

proper

definition

than

the

&dquo;free

speech

liberals&dquo;

err

in

excess

of

it.

But

there

are

ambiguities

in

both

positions

which

ought

to

be

cleared

up

before

criticizing

either.

The

first

question

is

whether

the

authors

of

these

definitions

are

trying

to

describe

a

sphere

of

special

privilege

or

immunity

for

university

professors,

or

whether

they

merely

mean

to

assert

for

university

professors

privileges

which

belong,

or

ought

to

belong,

to

all

persons

having

jobs

to

lose.

In

the

first

event

all

thought

of

kinship

between

academic

freedom

and

civil

right

can

be

abandoned

because

a

special

privilege

is

not

even

formal

material

for

a

civil

right.

In

the

second

event,

the

kinship

is

indicated

clearly

enough,

but

in

this

case

the

problem

is

not

academic

freedom

as

such,

but

the

compatibility

of

provisions

for

job

security

with

the

existing

scheme

of

civil

rights.

This

paper

proposes

to

deal

with

aca-

demic

freedom,

therefore,

as

a

claim

to

special

privilege.

But

then

another

preliminary

question

arises:

Are

special

privileges

proposed

for

teachers

because

of

their

exceptional

economic

vulnerability

to

attacks

on

their

jobs,

or

is

it

the

function

of

the

teacher

which

warrants

this

protection?

Every

professor

will

be

inclined

to

agree

that

he

belongs

to

a

group

generally

at

or

near

the

level

of

subsistence.

On

the

other