23 Facts About Academic freedom

Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without fear of repression, job loss, or imprisonment.

Academic freedom is a contested issue and, therefore, has limitations in practice.

Academic tenure protects academic freedom by ensuring that teachers can be fired only for causes such as gross professional incompetence or behavior that evokes condemnation from the academic community itself.

Academic freedom then founded a university that adhered to two principles of academic freedom: freedom of scientific inquiry and the unity between research and teaching.

Concept of academic freedom was clearly formulated in response to the encroachments of the totalitarian state on science and academia in general for the furtherance of its own goals.

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In contrast to this approach, Michael Polanyi argued that a structure of liberty is essential for the advancement of science – that the freedom to pursue science for its own sake is a prerequisite for the production of knowledge through peer review and the scientific method.

Proponents of academic freedom believe that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy.

Sociologist Ruth Pearce argued that the concept of academic freedom exists to protect scholarship from censure by state or religious authorities, and not to defend intolerance.

Concept of academic freedom as a right of faculty members is an established part of most legal systems.

Since professors through their Habilitation receive the right to teach in a particular academic field, academic freedom is deemed to cover at least the entirety of this field.

Protections for academic freedom are provided in Section 14 of the 1997 Universities Act.

Academic freedom became a public issue in May 2009 when the University of Mauritius spoke out against the previous vice chancellor Professor I Fagoonee, who had forwarded a circular sent by the Ministry of Education to academics.

Academic freedom became a main principle for higher education by 1997.

In general, it can be said that the essential academic freedom, the one aimed at the freedom of teaching and research, was preserved, and the government neither interfered nor tried to interfere in these contents.

Prominent feature of the English university concept is the Academic freedom to appoint faculty, set standards and admit students.

Academic freedom involves more than speech rights; for example, it includes the right to determine what is taught in the classroom.

In practice, academic freedom is protected by institutional rules and regulations, letters of appointment, faculty handbooks, collective bargaining agreements, and academic custom.

The US Supreme Court has consistently held that academic freedom is a First Amendment right at public institutions.

Academic freedom is associated with a movement to introduce intelligent design as an alternative explanation to evolution in US public schools.

Academic freedom stated that he believed his work on race to be more important than his work leading to the Nobel prize.

Academic freedom was strongly criticized for this stance, which raised some concerns about whether criticism of unpopular views of racial differences suppressed academic freedom.

Academic freedom suggested that the possibility of intrinsic gender differences in terms of talent for science and mathematics should be explored.

Academic freedom's critics were, in turn, accused of attempting to suppress academic freedom.