A distinguished panel of academic thinkers discussed academic freedom in the wake of September 11 as part of the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy’s conference in Chapel Hill Oct. 26. The conference focused on “challenges facing higher education in North Carolina.”
The panel, moderated by Dr. Roger Lotchin, professor of history at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, featured Dr. William Friday, UNC president emeritus; Dr. Alan Charles Kors, University of Pennsylvania professor of history and coauthor (with Harvey Silverglate) of The Shadow University: The Betrayal of Liberty on America’s Campuses; and William Van Alstyne, professor of law at Duke University. Kors also gave the keynote address at the conference, which touched on similar lines.
UNC’s spotted past
Friday gave the panel’s opening address. He spoke of UNC’s spotted past in terms of academic freedom, primarily discussing the history and personalities behind the infamous Speaker Ban Law of the 1960s. Passed in 1963 by the North Carolina General Assembly, the short-lived Speaker Ban Law sought to deny funding to any college or university that permitted its facilities to be used “for speaker purposes” by any individual who “A) Is a known member of the Communist Party; B) Is known to advocate the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States or the State of North Carolina; C) Has pleaded the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in refusing to answer any question, with respect to communist or subversive connections, or activities, before any duly constituted legislative committee, any judicial tribunal, or any executive or administrative board of the United States or any state.”
As Friday explained, the ban not only curtailed academic freedom at UNC, it also created an accreditation crisis for the university as well as a public-relations crisis. This Friday presented in contrast with how Wake Forest University approached the idea of communist speakers and those espousing other noxious ideas. While UNC’s speaker ban was in place, Friday said, Wake Forest brought heads of the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, and even the American Nazi Party to campus, and Wake Forest’s openness heightened its profile among U.S. universities.
Friday advocated freedom on expression on campus, saying it should not be curtailed. He said that he agrees with Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes about yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater, that license is not freedom. Free expression, he said, should not be limited.
“My great fear,” Friday said, “is that not enough Americans go to polls to exercise their right to vote on what they hear in open debate.”
Business as usual?
Kors spoke of the rampant curtailing of speech on campus since September 11, providing numerous individual examples. Some examples involved squelching speech counter to American policies on the war on terror, but most involved squelching speech in favor of those policies (including at some campuses the “offensive display” of the American flag and the removal of “Proud to be American” posters). Kors said that “the great majority of cases of speech being curtailed on campus” involves “speech of defenders of a vigorous war on terrorism.”
Kors said this reflected universities getting back to “business as usual: protecting students from the great majority of American thinkers.”
Kors also said that “universities now reside in an abyss of their own creation,” which is the gap between what they advocate and what they practice. One of his examples of this gap is the hypocrisy of the academy’s stance against racial profiling — while simultaneously teaching and practicing identifying people by race and gender.
Receiving particularly stinging criticism from Kors was the American Association of University Professors, which “for 20 years has turned a blind eye to campus speech codes and partisan double standards.” He cited the AAUP’s 1991 “Statement on the Political Correctness Controversy,” in which the AAUP said:
“In recent months, critics have accused American higher education of submitting to the alleged domination of exponents of `political correctness.’ Their assault has involved sloganeering, name calling, the irresponsible use of anecdotes, and not infrequently the assertion that `political correctness’ is the new McCarthyism that is chilling the climate of debate on campus and subjecting political dissenters to the threat of reprisal.”
Pointing out the marked contrast between the AAUP’s statement and the reality of repression on campus today, Kors noted that the AAUP has been prompted — by the relatively few instances of campuses curtailing of speech counter to U.S. policies — to issue statements of concern over academic freedom after Sept. 11. Kors asked, “Where have they [the AAUP] been, and how do those words not stick in their throats?”
Van Alstyne, a past president of the AAUP, addressed the legal framework surrounding the concept of academic freedom, including the fact that the U.S. Constitution has no separate clause delineating academic freedom, as some other countries (Germany, for instance) do. The First Amendment, however, applies toward academic freedom, an application made explicit by court decisions, Van Alstyne said.
In a jab at Kors, Van Alstyne spoke critically of “zeal” and “hyperbole” in discussing academic freedom, saying “old-time academic homework” was needed instead to investigate individual cases. He spoke of two cases Kors mentioned as examples. One involved the dismissal of a Palestinian professor at the University of South Florida, Sami Al-Arian, who was suspected of terrorist ties. This case had garnered the AAUP’s attention, Van Alstyne said, and the university’s stated reasons for dismissing the professor had changed, and while the change was suspicious, the new charges warranted full investigation, he said.
The other involved a Duke professor whose website was shut down by the university for having a link to an article favoring a military response to terrorism against the United States, and then later reinstated with the unique requirement of a disclaimer (not previously required by the university on other professors’ websites). Van Alstyne spoke of the lack of a blanket standard governing the use of university terminals in this case, especially when that use involves the commingling of opinion and university work.
Sanders is assistant editor of Carolina Journal.