Brian Leiter
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally posted October 25, 2018
Here is an excerpt:
The issue is particularly fraught in one of my academic fields, philosophy, in which Gottlob Frege, the founder of modern logic and philosophy of language, was a disgusting anti-Semite, and Martin Heidegger, a prominent figure in 20th-century existentialism, was an actual Nazi.
What is a scholar to do?
I propose a simple answer: Insofar as you aim to contribute to scholarship in your discipline, cite work that is relevant regardless of the author’s misdeeds. Otherwise you are not doing scholarship but something else. Let me explain.
Wilhelm von Humboldt crafted the influential ideal of the modern research university in Germany some 200 years ago. In his vision, the university is a place where all, and only, Wissenschaften — "sciences" — find a home. The German Wissenschaften has no connotation of natural science, unlike its English counterpart. A Wissenschaft is any systematic form of inquiry into nature, history, literature, or society marked by rigorous methods that secure the reliability or truth of its findings.
The info is here.
Showing posts with label Academic Freedom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Academic Freedom. Show all posts
Sunday, November 25, 2018
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
New Threats to Academic Freedom
Francesca Minerva
Bioethics, (2014): 28(4); 157–162
Here is an excerpt:
In the first few days following online publication, we were deluged with an average of 30 death threats and hate emails a day. Many blogs and online newspapers reported the news and thousands of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ users shared the links and commented on the articles.
The discussion, largely in public rather than in academic journals, did not focus exclusively on the arguments of the paper but also on the authors. Perhaps attesting to an underlying current of sexism, the personal attacks were largely directed at me: I am a young woman and young women are supposed to have babies, not to argue in favour of after-birth abortion. This disparity got to the point that some newspapers even neglected to mention that the paper was co-authored, indicating me as the only author.
The different treatment of Singer’s and Tooley’s work on the same topic on the one hand,
and our paper on the other shows how the Web has changed the way academic ideas circulate. It is useful to highlight at least three aspects of this change:
1) The Internet has significantly speeded up the dissemination of academic ideas to the general public. Up to twenty years ago, access to academic work was almost exclusively through academic books and hard copy academic journals. Nowadays, many academic journals maintain an online version which is easily and quickly accessible. Journalists can read academic papers and write a piece for an online newspaper, which may be shared by millions of users on other websites, or Blogs, and social network sites.
The entire paper is here.
Bioethics, (2014): 28(4); 157–162
Here is an excerpt:
In the first few days following online publication, we were deluged with an average of 30 death threats and hate emails a day. Many blogs and online newspapers reported the news and thousands of Twitter, Facebook and Google+ users shared the links and commented on the articles.
The discussion, largely in public rather than in academic journals, did not focus exclusively on the arguments of the paper but also on the authors. Perhaps attesting to an underlying current of sexism, the personal attacks were largely directed at me: I am a young woman and young women are supposed to have babies, not to argue in favour of after-birth abortion. This disparity got to the point that some newspapers even neglected to mention that the paper was co-authored, indicating me as the only author.
The different treatment of Singer’s and Tooley’s work on the same topic on the one hand,
and our paper on the other shows how the Web has changed the way academic ideas circulate. It is useful to highlight at least three aspects of this change:
1) The Internet has significantly speeded up the dissemination of academic ideas to the general public. Up to twenty years ago, access to academic work was almost exclusively through academic books and hard copy academic journals. Nowadays, many academic journals maintain an online version which is easily and quickly accessible. Journalists can read academic papers and write a piece for an online newspaper, which may be shared by millions of users on other websites, or Blogs, and social network sites.
The entire paper is here.
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Tweet Police
Kansas’ ability to fire professors for posting on social media is bad news for academic freedom—and may not even be legal.
By Frank K. LoMonte
Inside Higher Ed via Slate
Originally posted January 3, 2014
For decades, the Supreme Court has kept vigil over the campuses of state universities as, in the words of one memorable 1995 ruling, "peculiarly the marketplace for ideas." No opinion, the Supreme Court has emphasized, is too challenging or unsettling that it can be banned from the college classroom.
Forget the classroom—professors today are fortunate if they can be safe from punishment for an unkind word posted from a home computer on a personal, off-campus blog.
The Kansas Board of Regents triggered academic-freedom alarm bells across America last month with a hastily adopted revision to university personnel policies that makes “improper use of social media” grounds for discipline up to and including termination. (While the board this week ordered a review of the policy, it remains in place.)
The entire story is here.
By Frank K. LoMonte
Inside Higher Ed via Slate
Originally posted January 3, 2014
For decades, the Supreme Court has kept vigil over the campuses of state universities as, in the words of one memorable 1995 ruling, "peculiarly the marketplace for ideas." No opinion, the Supreme Court has emphasized, is too challenging or unsettling that it can be banned from the college classroom.
Forget the classroom—professors today are fortunate if they can be safe from punishment for an unkind word posted from a home computer on a personal, off-campus blog.
The Kansas Board of Regents triggered academic-freedom alarm bells across America last month with a hastily adopted revision to university personnel policies that makes “improper use of social media” grounds for discipline up to and including termination. (While the board this week ordered a review of the policy, it remains in place.)
The entire story is here.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Seven subjects off limits for teaching, Chinese universities told
Civil rights, press freedom and party's mistakes among subjects banned from teaching in order described by an academic as back-pedaling
By Raymond Li
South China Morning Post
Originally published May 11, 2013
Mainland universities have been ordered to steer clear of seven topics in their teaching, including universal values, press freedom and civil rights, two university staff said, offering an insight into ideological control under the new Communist Party leaders.
A law professor with a Shanghai-based university who requested anonymity because he feared persecution said yesterday that teaching staff at his university had been briefed about the seven taboo subjects, which also include judicial independence and the past mistakes of the Communist Party.
"Are we still a university if we are not allowed to talk about even civil rights and press freedom?" he asked.
He said he had no idea which party department had given the order, saying they were simply told that it came from the party's Central Committee.
A Beijing-based industrial relations professor said yesterday the order, in the form of a classified document, had come from the General Office of the party's Central Committee, and only a select group of teaching and administrative staff at his university had been briefed about it.
The Beijing professor, who also declined to be named, said he had not personally seen the document but had been briefed on it because he had been outspoken.
"It's apparent back-pedaling if we cannot talk about what the Communist Party did wrong in the past," he said.
The entire story is here.
By Raymond Li
South China Morning Post
Originally published May 11, 2013
Mainland universities have been ordered to steer clear of seven topics in their teaching, including universal values, press freedom and civil rights, two university staff said, offering an insight into ideological control under the new Communist Party leaders.
A law professor with a Shanghai-based university who requested anonymity because he feared persecution said yesterday that teaching staff at his university had been briefed about the seven taboo subjects, which also include judicial independence and the past mistakes of the Communist Party.
"Are we still a university if we are not allowed to talk about even civil rights and press freedom?" he asked.
He said he had no idea which party department had given the order, saying they were simply told that it came from the party's Central Committee.
A Beijing-based industrial relations professor said yesterday the order, in the form of a classified document, had come from the General Office of the party's Central Committee, and only a select group of teaching and administrative staff at his university had been briefed about it.
The Beijing professor, who also declined to be named, said he had not personally seen the document but had been briefed on it because he had been outspoken.
"It's apparent back-pedaling if we cannot talk about what the Communist Party did wrong in the past," he said.
The entire story is here.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Arab Universities Grapple With U.S. Accreditation's Focus on Academic Freedom
By Sarah Lynch
Al Fanar
Originally published April 3, 2013
Accreditation by U.S. agencies is a prize that many universities in the Arab world have sought in recent years, a prize that allows them to sell students from the region on getting an education at U. S. standards closer to home and at a lower cost.
But could that prize have a price—the risk of losing accreditation if autocratic Arab regimes tighten up, academic freedom slips, and accreditation gets pulled?
Accreditation in the United States is carried out by agencies responsible for different regions of the country, some of which have recently ventured overseas to accredit foreign universities. All of the U.S. accreditation agencies have at least some academic freedom guidelines. “The success of American higher education, including the high regard in which it is held worldwide, is explained in good measure by the observance of academic freedom,” said an October 2012 statement of the American Association of University Professors and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
A recent incident in the United Arab Emirates put that emphasis on academic freedom into focus. A conference co-organized by the London School of Economics and the American University of Sharjah was set to be held in the Emirates in February, then cancelled after the government insisted that a presentation about Bahrain be dropped. The London School of Economics called off the conference “in response to restrictions imposed on the intellectual content of the event that threatened academic freedom.”
The entire story is here.
Al Fanar
Originally published April 3, 2013
Accreditation by U.S. agencies is a prize that many universities in the Arab world have sought in recent years, a prize that allows them to sell students from the region on getting an education at U. S. standards closer to home and at a lower cost.
But could that prize have a price—the risk of losing accreditation if autocratic Arab regimes tighten up, academic freedom slips, and accreditation gets pulled?
Accreditation in the United States is carried out by agencies responsible for different regions of the country, some of which have recently ventured overseas to accredit foreign universities. All of the U.S. accreditation agencies have at least some academic freedom guidelines. “The success of American higher education, including the high regard in which it is held worldwide, is explained in good measure by the observance of academic freedom,” said an October 2012 statement of the American Association of University Professors and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
A recent incident in the United Arab Emirates put that emphasis on academic freedom into focus. A conference co-organized by the London School of Economics and the American University of Sharjah was set to be held in the Emirates in February, then cancelled after the government insisted that a presentation about Bahrain be dropped. The London School of Economics called off the conference “in response to restrictions imposed on the intellectual content of the event that threatened academic freedom.”
The entire story is here.
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Court Upholds Firing of College Official Over Op-Ed Against Gay Rights
By Peter Schmidt
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published December 17, 2012
A federal appeals court has upheld the University of Toledo's decision to fire a high-level human-resources administrator who wrote a newspaper opinion column challenging the idea that gay people deserve the same civil-rights protections as members of racial minority groups.
In a ruling handed down on Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the administrator's column "contradicted the very policies she was charged with creating, promoting, and enforcing," and cannot be excused as merely a statement of her own views as a private citizen. The panel affirmed a lower court's decision to dismiss the administrator's lawsuit accusing the public university of violating her constitutional rights by firing her.
At the center of the case was an opinion essay that Crystal Dixon, who had been the university's interim associate vice president for human resources, published in the Toledo Free Press in April 2008. In it, she wrote that she takes "great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are 'civil-rights victims.'" She argued that she "cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman" because she is biologically and genetically such "as my creator intended." But, she said, "daily, thousands of homosexuals make a life decision to leave the gay lifestyle" with the help of groups such as Exodus International, which claim to be able to help people overcome homosexual desires.
The entire article is here.
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Originally published December 17, 2012
A federal appeals court has upheld the University of Toledo's decision to fire a high-level human-resources administrator who wrote a newspaper opinion column challenging the idea that gay people deserve the same civil-rights protections as members of racial minority groups.
In a ruling handed down on Monday, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that the administrator's column "contradicted the very policies she was charged with creating, promoting, and enforcing," and cannot be excused as merely a statement of her own views as a private citizen. The panel affirmed a lower court's decision to dismiss the administrator's lawsuit accusing the public university of violating her constitutional rights by firing her.
At the center of the case was an opinion essay that Crystal Dixon, who had been the university's interim associate vice president for human resources, published in the Toledo Free Press in April 2008. In it, she wrote that she takes "great umbrage at the notion that those choosing the homosexual lifestyle are 'civil-rights victims.'" She argued that she "cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman" because she is biologically and genetically such "as my creator intended." But, she said, "daily, thousands of homosexuals make a life decision to leave the gay lifestyle" with the help of groups such as Exodus International, which claim to be able to help people overcome homosexual desires.
The entire article is here.
No Longer a Silent Minority
By Libby A. Nelson
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published December 17, 2012
The six-month lifespan of Queer at Patrick Henry College, a blog focusing on the struggles of gay students at the evangelical Christian college in Virginia, has been turbulent, to say the least.
First the chancellor and founder of the college threatened to sue the bloggers over their use of the Patrick Henry name, then withdrew the threat, all on Facebook. Then he claimed to a local newspaper that the blog had to be a hoax -- that the college’s honor code, which prohibits homosexuality, meant there were no gay students on campus.
The drama has attracted a glut of national media attention, far more than the blog’s founders expected. But their story is far less unusual than it would have seemed even a year ago. More than 50 such groups, blogs and activist alumni groups have sprung up at similar Christian colleges over the past year, making 2012 something of a watershed moment for gay students and alumni at evangelical colleges.
Just over a year ago, gay alumni of Wheaton College, the evangelical college in Illinois, formed a support group and held their own homecoming celebration. Since then, groups following their template (down to the naming conventions -- OneWheaton led to OneEastern, at Eastern University, and One George Fox, at George Fox College in Oregon) have formed even at Christian colleges that place an emphasis on Biblical inerrancy.
Now new organizations and campaigns have been formed to tie these groups together so that students can share their experiences and press for change. Their goals are often incremental; few expect that Christian colleges will follow the growing national trend of supporting gay marriage, but they hope that gay students will be treated with more sensitivity and respect.
The entire article is here.
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published December 17, 2012
The six-month lifespan of Queer at Patrick Henry College, a blog focusing on the struggles of gay students at the evangelical Christian college in Virginia, has been turbulent, to say the least.
First the chancellor and founder of the college threatened to sue the bloggers over their use of the Patrick Henry name, then withdrew the threat, all on Facebook. Then he claimed to a local newspaper that the blog had to be a hoax -- that the college’s honor code, which prohibits homosexuality, meant there were no gay students on campus.
The drama has attracted a glut of national media attention, far more than the blog’s founders expected. But their story is far less unusual than it would have seemed even a year ago. More than 50 such groups, blogs and activist alumni groups have sprung up at similar Christian colleges over the past year, making 2012 something of a watershed moment for gay students and alumni at evangelical colleges.
Just over a year ago, gay alumni of Wheaton College, the evangelical college in Illinois, formed a support group and held their own homecoming celebration. Since then, groups following their template (down to the naming conventions -- OneWheaton led to OneEastern, at Eastern University, and One George Fox, at George Fox College in Oregon) have formed even at Christian colleges that place an emphasis on Biblical inerrancy.
Now new organizations and campaigns have been formed to tie these groups together so that students can share their experiences and press for change. Their goals are often incremental; few expect that Christian colleges will follow the growing national trend of supporting gay marriage, but they hope that gay students will be treated with more sensitivity and respect.
The entire article is here.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Anti-Gay Bias or Academic Freedom?
By Scott Jaschik
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published September 4, 2012
The gay alumni group at Franciscan University of Steubenville last week tried to draw attention to a course it views as anti-gay, and ended up embroiled in disputes not only over that course but over the group's right to link itself to the university in a public way.
Franciscan is a university that prides itself on strict adherence to Roman Catholic teachings, and the alumni group has no official connection to the university. But it has called itself, based on its members and their affiliations, Franciscan University Gay Alumni and Allies. Under that name, the group last week issued a news release questioning why the university offers a course that links homosexuality with forms of deviant behavior.
The course description, pulled from the university's catalog, states: "DEVIANT BEHAVIOR focuses on the sociological theories of deviant behavior such as strain theory, differential association theory, labeling theory, and phenomenological theory. The behaviors that are primarily examined are murder, rape, robbery, prostitution, homosexuality, mental illness, and drug use. The course focuses on structural conditions in society that potentially play a role in influencing deviant behavior."
The entire story is here.
Inside Higher Ed
Originally published September 4, 2012
The gay alumni group at Franciscan University of Steubenville last week tried to draw attention to a course it views as anti-gay, and ended up embroiled in disputes not only over that course but over the group's right to link itself to the university in a public way.
Franciscan is a university that prides itself on strict adherence to Roman Catholic teachings, and the alumni group has no official connection to the university. But it has called itself, based on its members and their affiliations, Franciscan University Gay Alumni and Allies. Under that name, the group last week issued a news release questioning why the university offers a course that links homosexuality with forms of deviant behavior.
The course description, pulled from the university's catalog, states: "DEVIANT BEHAVIOR focuses on the sociological theories of deviant behavior such as strain theory, differential association theory, labeling theory, and phenomenological theory. The behaviors that are primarily examined are murder, rape, robbery, prostitution, homosexuality, mental illness, and drug use. The course focuses on structural conditions in society that potentially play a role in influencing deviant behavior."
The entire story is here.
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