Who's afraid of academic freedom? /

Academic freedom, as distilled from the definition by the American Association of University Professors in 1915 and expanded in 1940, is a bedrock of a free university. However, providing a comprehensive definition hardly spells the end of challenges and controversies. Does academic freedom extend to students? Does it pertain to professorial views beyond the field of expertise and/or the classroom? Assaults and dilemmas come from within as well as from without. These 17 essays, complemented by a survey of Columbia faculty presented with some thorny questions, touch on some in-house issues, including discrimination against new disciplines and their devotees, the heavy hand of institutional review boards looking at live-subject research, and the displeasure of those from above who hire and promote. From outside academia, the authors find political outrage and the demand for "self-discipline," demonstrated in recent years in the debate centering on Israel (with case studies telling of canceled speakers and even of terminated faculty). Given the number of essays, there is some repetition, variation in line of approach, and different views of the enemy. Nevertheless, all authors unite for a sober reminder that while academic freedom may be a "given," its proponents can never rest on their laurels. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through researchers and faculty; general readers. --Joel T. Rosenthal, emeritus, SUNY at Stony Brook

Scholars consider threats to free inquiry.Editors Bilgrami (Philosophy/Columbia Univ.; Secularism, Identity, and Enchantment, 2013, etc.) and Cole (Mason Professor of the University/Columbia Univ.; The Great American University, 2010, etc.) bring together eminent scholarsStanley Fish, Noam Chomsky and Judith Butler, among themto analyze the vexing and controversial issue of academic freedom. The concept began in the late 19th century, when American colleges no longer aimed to train men for the ministry but rather to become critical thinkers. "To criticize and augment, as well as to preserve the tradition, became an accepted function," write the editors. "This was an extraordinary departure for a system that previously had aimed primarily at cultural conservation." Coincident with internal changes was new funding: private support by prominent businessmen, who assumed they could influence curriculum and hiring. Princeton professor Joan Scott notes that the doctrine of academic freedom was codified in 1915 by the American Association of University Professors to ensure faculty autonomy in newly established research universities. The AAUP held that teaching, research and publications should be evaluated only by professional scholars with relevant expertise. That stipulation still engenders debate, as government funding and Institutional Review Boards weigh in on research parameters. Like other contributors, Columbia philosophy professor Michele Moody-Adams sees the university as a refuge where intellectual diversity, however unsettling to donors, colleagues or even students, must be preserved. Several contributors consider whether academic freedom is guaranteed by the First Amendment or whether it has a special legal status. A final, eye-opening essay summarizes a study conducted at Columbia in which 1,610 faculty members were asked to evaluate 14 vignettes suggesting challenges to academic freedom: research curtailed by IRBs, for example, or faculty making politically unpopular remarks in class. The results showed wide disagreement about what free inquiry means and what academic freedom protects. Cogent essays about a topic crucial to the university and to all discourse in a democracy. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.