The Doctrine of Academic Freedom - Let’s give up on academic freedom in favor of justice

The Harvard Crimson ^ | February 18, 2014 | Sandra Y.L. Korn

[Keltik]

Yet the liberal obsession with “academic freedom” seems a bit misplaced to me. After all, no one ever has “full freedom” in research and publication. Which research proposals receive funding and what papers are accepted for publication are always contingent on political priorities. The words used to articulate a research question can have implications for its outcome. No academic question is ever “free” from political realities. If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of “academic freedom”?

Instead, I would like to propose a more rigorous standard: one of “academic justice.” When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.

It is tempting to decry frustrating restrictions on academic research as violations of academic freedom. Yet I would encourage student and worker organizers to instead use a framework of justice. After all, if we give up our obsessive reliance on the doctrine of academic freedom, we can consider more thoughtfully what is just.

[Keltik]

Sandra Y.L. Korn ’14, a Crimson editorial writer, is a joint history of science and studies of women, gender and sexuality concentrator in Eliot House. Her column usually appears on alternate Mondays.

[Flintlock]

Another happy little fascist from Boston.

Lock and load, boys and girls—this will not end well.

[allendale]

Ms. Korn is an enemy of the people.

[CharlesOConnell]

“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.” – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

[Timocrat]

If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of “academic freedom”?

Apparently the Harvard motto needs to be changed from " Veritas" to "Veritas Nostra". Another happy little fascist from Harvard.

[Travis McGee]

[Albion Wilde]

"I would like to propose a more rigorous standard: one of “academic justice.” "

This ridiculous idea presupposes the outcome of any inquiry. It removes some ideas from criticism as well as removing other ideas from promotion. It erases the Bill of Rights' concept of "innocent until proven guilty."

[Wuli]

“and studies of women, gender and sexuality”

which are not academic courses, they are political and politicized courses where neither the source material content of the content delivered by the professors has is bound by rigorous objectivity

to such people “justice” is whatever they want to define it as