When was the academic bill of rights written

The debate itself ironically fulfills the spirit of the Academic Bill of Rights. This article was originally published in Michael P. Bahr, Ann Marie B. Browning, Reed. Hebel, Sara. Lazere, Donald. Pavela, Gary.

Sanders, Jon. Roosevelt in The Declaration of Independence and the original, unamended Constitution were written and signed in Philadelphia. The Bill of Rights built on that foundation, protecting our most cherished American freedoms, including freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and due process of law.

For more than two centuries—as we have exercised, restricted, expanded, tested, and debated those freedoms—the Bill of Rights has shaped and been shaped by what it means to be American. Toggle navigation. How many original copies of the Bill of Rights exist? Where are they? When was the Bill of Rights ratified? Where was the Bill of Rights written? Why is the Bill of Rights so important? Probably 98 percent of the U. Congress and all of the nation's governors would fit under such a definition of "right wing.

A left-leaning tilt in the faculty is a pedagogical necessity, because professors must expose gender, racial, and class bias while promoting peace, "diversity" and "cultural competence. What they do need, and would much benefit from, is more Marxists, radicals, leftists -- all terms conventionally applied to those who fight against exploitation, racism, sexism, and capitalism.

We can never have too many of these, just as we can never have too few 'conservatives. Furr's remarks echoed those of Connecticut College's Rhonda Garelick, who decried student "disgruntlement" when she used her French class to discuss her opposition to the war in Iraq and teach "'wakeful' political literacy. The "creativity" in humanities and social science disciplines, he noted, addresses issues of race, class, and gender, leading to a "perfectly logical criticism of the current society" in the classroom.

At some universities, this mindset has even shaped curricular or personnel policies. Though its release generated widespread criticism and hints from administrators that it would not be adopted, a proposal to make "cultural competence" a key factor in all personnel decisions remains the working draft of the University of Oregon's new diversity plan. On the curricular front, my own institution's provost, Roberta Matthews who has written that "teaching is a political act" intends for the college's new general education curriculum to produce "global citizens" -- who, she commented, are those "sensitized to issues of race, class, and gender.

Given such initiatives, it is worth remembering the traditional ideal of a university education: for faculty committed to free intellectual exchange in pursuit of the truth to expose undergraduates to the disciplines of the liberal arts canon, in the expectation that college graduates will possess the wide range of knowledge and skills necessary to function as democratic citizens.

University of Michigan professor Juan Cole, denouncing the "ridiculous and pernicious line" that major universities need greater intellectual diversity, complained about insufficient attention to the ideological breakdown of "Business Schools, Medical Schools, [and] Engineering schools. Professional schools reflect the mindset of their professions: Socialists are about as common on business school faculty as are home-schooling advocates among education school professors.

But, unlike business schools, liberal arts colleges and universities do not exist to train students for a single profession. Nor are they supposed to balance the existing political culture. If the Democrats reclaim the presidency and Congress in the elections, should the academy suddenly adopt an anti-liberal posture?

The intellectual diversity issue shows no signs of fading away. Ideological one-sidedness among the professoriate seems to be, if anything, expanding.

And so, no doubt, will we see additional surveys suggesting a heavy ideological imbalance among the nation's faculty -- followed by new inflammatory statements from the academic Establishment that only reinforce the critics' claims about bias in the personnel process. In an ideal world, campus administrators would have rectified this problem long ago. A few have made small steps. Brown University's president, Ruth Simmons, for instance, has expressed concern that the "chilling effect caused by the dominance of certain voices on the spectrum of moral and political thought" might negatively affect a quality education; her university's Political Theory Project represents a model that other institutions could follow.

To my knowledge, however, no academic administration has made the creation of an intellectually and pedagogically diverse faculty its primary goal. This statement, it should be noted, applies equally as well to institutions frequently praised by conservatives, such as Hillsdale College. Such an initiative, of course, would encounter ferocious faculty resistance. But it would also, just as surely, excite parents, donors, and trustees. If successful, an institution that made intellectual diversity its hallmark would encourage imitation -- if only because other colleges would face the free-market pressures of losing talented students and faculty.

So, the question becomes, do we have an administration anywhere in the country willing to take up the cause? About two weeks before the presidential election, one of the students in a government class that I was teaching raised his hand and demanded to know who I was supporting for president.

Noticing my reaction, he offered some background, explaining that he was not the only one in the class who had this question. We had, after all, been talking about the election during nearly every session, and my reticence with regard to what seemed to the students to be a crucial point was a source of confusion.

Despite his protests, I refused to answer, and quickly moved to the topic of the day. Later on, however, I had some time to consider the exchange. This was, I thought, one of the best evaluations that I had ever received. Here was real evidence that I was doing my job! More to the point, however, is that I am not qualified to teach students about who should be elected.

In fact, I am no more qualified to tell people who they should vote for than I am to teach a class in quantum mechanics. I have colleagues over in the physics department who are qualified to offer a course in the latter subject; none of us has the same credibility when it comes to the former. Indeed, in an important way, this blanket incompetence is a part of the class lesson -- particularly, though not exclusively, in a class on American government. It is an implicit argument for democracy, or at least democratic equality.

It is also, however, an argument about education. If professors, or anybody else for that matter, actually "knew" who the president should be, then voting, especially by those who did not know, would be unnecessary, and probably counterproductive.

This is easy to illustrate by considering the following example: Suppose that I feel ill, and would like to know what I might do to feel better.

One approach would be to poll my friends, asking each of them what I should do. But suppose that among my friends was a medical doctor. Would it not make sense to follow her advice, eschewing the opinions of the rest of my friends? Now, what if I were on a deserted island, with no trained medical professionals available? Then, I might as well seek out the advice of friends, summing their opinions. When we are all equally ignorant, we might as well vote. If one reads carefully through the Constitution, one finds that the document does not call for the popular election of the president.

Instead, state legislatures are charged with appointing presidential electors the real voters in any manner which they see fit. By practice, though not amendment, Americans have reformed this process. Another federal appellate court has ruled that professors have no First Amendment right of academic freedom to determine appropriate curriculum, though under somewhat different circumstances.

In Edwards , Dilawar M. Edwards, a tenured professor in media studies, sued the administration for violating his right to free speech by restricting his choice of classroom materials in an educational media course. FAIR v. Rumsfeld , U. This Supreme Court case involved a federal law known as the Solomon Amendment, which required that colleges and universities allow the military full access to recruiting on campus.

Any university excluding military recruiters from campus faced a loss of federal funding, even if only one component of the university flouted the law. A coalition of law schools sued the federal government, arguing that having to choose between violating their nondiscrimination policies and losing millions of dollars of federal funding violated their First Amendment rights to academic freedom, free speech, and freedom of association. The Supreme Court decided that the law schools must permit the military to recruit on campus.

One recurring issue is whether a university administration has the right to change a grade given by a faculty member to a student—or, to phrase the issue differently, whether the faculty member has the academic freedom to assign the grade without interference or second-guessing by administrators.

The answer to the first formulation of the issue at least under current case law is generally yes; the answer to the second is that it depends on the court. The AAUP affirms the right of faculty members to assign student grades and oversee any changes to grades. Under the Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure , one faculty right that flows from a "teacher's freedom in the classroom" is the assessment of student academic performance, including the assignment of particular grades.

In addition, the AAUP Statement on the Assignment of Course Grades and Student Appeals sets forth principles to be followed in assigning and changing grades, with a focus on faculty control over assignment and review of grades. Some courts have acknowledged that instructors have the right to assign grades to students. Ewing , U.

Dickson County School Board , 53 F. However, professors may be required to conform to university-wide grading procedures, particularly when the policies have been developed or approved by the faculty. For instance, in Wozniak v. Conry , F. Courts have generally distinguished, however, between the right to assign a grade and the right not to have the institution itself change the grade. For instance, in Parate v. Isibor Tennessee State University , F. In , another federal appeals court went even further, rejecting the reasoning in Parate.

In Brown v. Armenti , F. The Third Circuit ruled in favor of the university president, concluding that a "public university professor does not have a First Amendment right to expression via the school's grade assignment procedures. For a more in-depth discussion of the First Amendment and academic freedom implications of grading, see Donna Euben, Who Grades Students?

Although legislative language varies from state to state, the overall thrust has been the same: to increase so-called political diversity in the faculty, and to expand both legislative oversight over what professors may teach and the power of students to challenge teachings methods or ideologies with which they disagree.

So far, faculty members and university administrations have been largely successful in fending off these challenges to academic freedom. The legislative sponsor, state senator and Republican majority leader Thayer Verschoor, cited a year-oldincident from when he was a student, in which he was offended by a classroom exercise in a class in which he was not enrolled that required male students to dress up like women.

Rejecting the charge that the bill violated academic freedom, Sen. Although the bill did not pass, it hints at the anxiety felt in many states about the bedrock principles of academic freedom, which are inextricably tied to the protections of the First Amendment.

Because no statutes of this type have yet passed a state legislature, no courts have yet tackled the contours of their entrenchment onto academic freedom rights. Nevertheless, AAUP policy on this issue is quite clear.

The AAUP has consistently held that academic freedom can only be maintained so long as faculty remain autonomous and self-governing. The central precepts of academic freedom. Walter R. For further ideas on how to approach legislators about the importance of preserving academic freedom at public institutions, see the appendix to this outline, as well as the many resources on the Government Relations section of the AAUP website.

In addition to their teaching, research, and service obligations, faculty members frequently help run their academic institutions through shared governance. Legal issues sometimes arise when faculty members speak out on institutional matters—such as the process by which a college president is appointed or the negative consequences of a new admissions standard.

Such faculty criticism is often directed at the institution's governing board, the president and other administrators, and even faculty colleagues. Courts had traditionally used a balancing test when assessing whether faculty expression at a public institution was protected; in light of a recent Supreme Court opinion, however, it is not yet clear how much latitude public faculty members have to speak, and under what circumstances.

Schrier v. University of Colorado. Robert Schrier, a doctor and a tenured faculty member at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, chaired the department of medicine for over 20 years until the administration removed him from that position in October He sued the school, arguing, in part, that his removal as chair violated his First Amendment right of academic freedom.

The district court rejected Dr. Schrier's legal claims. The court found that Dr. Schrier's status as a university professor, who also served as department chair, entitled him to no rights distinct from those of any other public employees. The federal appeals court affirmed the denial of Schrier's injunction by the lower court, affirming that Schrier's speech was on a matter of public concern, but ruling that the administration's interest in suppressing Schrier's speech outweighed his right to free expression.

The court appeared to focus on Dr. Crue v. Aiken University of Illinois-Champaign. The faculty and students opposed the school's use of the Chief Illiniwek mascot, and contended, in part, that the mascot created a hostile learning environment for Native American students and increased the difficulty of recruiting Native American students to the campus. They wished to contact prospective student athletes to make them aware of this controversy.

The district court ruled in favor of the faculty and students, finding that the administration's directive violated the First Amendment. The Seventh Circuit, in a decision, ruled that an administrative directive prohibiting faculty and students from communicating with prospective student athletes violated the First Amendment, because the directive constituted a prior restraint.

And that speech is also an integral part of their job as public employees. In Garcetti v. Ceballos , U. Casey v. Ryan v. Ryan was a physical therapist who worked at a school district with children whose health problems interfered with their education.

Ryan complained to her director that too many children needed her services, and that some were being denied adequate care. As a result, she was eventually asked to resign. Mayer v. Although this case took place in an elementary school rather than in an institution of higher education, it helps illustrate how some courts might approach higher education cases under Garcetti. Deborah Mayer, a probationary first-year elementary school teacher, was asked by her students if she participated in political demonstrations; she replied that she honked her horn in support of a peace demonstration.

Head v. The court further held:. Public university instructors are not required by the First Amendment to provide class time for students to voice views that contradict the material being taught or interfere with16instruction or the educational mission.