Two recent reports sound warnings about freedom on university campuses. A report by the American Association of University Professors centers on threats to academic freedom since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. A report by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education demonstrates college students’ and administrators’ lack of knowledge of the First Amendment protection of religious liberty.
The AAUP report was prepared by a special committee tasked with “assessing risks to academic freedom and free inquiry posed by the nation’s response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.” A key portion of the report looks at provisions of the USA Patriot Act, which the report states “gravely threatens academic freedom.” In general, the report states, “The speed with which the law was introduced and passed [in October 2001], the lack of deliberation surrounding its enactment, and the directions it provides for law-enforcement agencies have raised troubling questions about its effects on privacy, civil liberties, and academic freedom.”
According to the report, provisions in the Patriot Act that affect academe include: granting exceptions to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (1974) to allow senior officials in the U.S. Department of Justice with a court order to collect educational records related to an investigation or prosecution of a suspected terrorist; altering the Electronics Communications Privacy Act (1986) to eliminate the wiretap statute for voice communications stored with third-party providers (such as presumably university voice-mailboxes), requiring instead a search warrant, which is easier to obtain than approval of a wiretap permit; and amending the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (1978) to “eliminate the specific categories of information” covered and extends its coverage to “any ‘person,’ a designation that can encompass academic libraries, university bookstores, and Internet service providers.”
The report was also cautionary over the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, which places security strictures over “every laboratory in the nation that works with ‘select’ biological agents.” The report also lists several problems and concerns with the Student Exchange Visitor Information System, “a Web-based system to track foreign students and scholars,” and the more rigorous screening requirements for foreigners from countries designated as supporters of terrorism (Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and others) or as sensitive (Russia, China, and India).
Furthermore, the report questions the overall effectiveness of restrictions on “sensitive” information and research and also regulations on exports. It acknowledges that the “classification system [for information] and export regulations are suitable for restricting the release of information that could result in sudden and drastic gains by terrorists.” It says, however, “The challenge is to restrain the dissemination of only that research which, if disclosed, could harm national security.”
Finally, the report discusses “issues that have arisen within the academic community and the ways in which faculty members, administrators, and governing boards have dealt with challenges to academic freedom.” It discusses the cases of University of New Mexico Professor Richard Berthold (who joked in class that “Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon gets my vote”), Orange Coast College Professor Kenneth Hearlson (falsely accused by Muslim students of calling them “terrorists” and “Nazis”), and some others. The report denounced as “disturbing” the University of South Florida’s dismissing of Professor Sami Al-Arian, who was arrested with several others for having “raised funds and provided material support for terrorist organizations.”
Two universities in North Carolina merited mention in the AAUP report. UNC-Chapel Hill was discussed owing to the controversy and lawsuit over its assignment of Michael Sells’ Approaching the Qu’ran: The Early Revelations, but the report noted that “the UNC administration held firm.”
N.C. State also was mentioned in the report under a section highlighting “intense community response, even expressions of outrage,” to visiting speakers. The report states that “talk-show host Phil Donahue managed to finish his commencement address at North Carolina State University, despite boos, catcalls, and the visible departure of some graduates.” (The report’s paucity of description does not inform readers that the boos began after, as reported by Baker Mitchell for Carolina Journal, Donahue had “harangued parents for their role in trampling the United States Constitution and said that the graduates must protect this sacred document by becoming liberal.”)
The AAUP also discusses the threat presented by “private groups, parading under the banner of patriotism or acting to further a specific cause, [that] have been monitoring academic activities and have denounced professorial departures from what these groups view as acceptable.” Nevertheless, the report says, “As private entities, these groups are protected by the First Amendment from state censorship or sanction as long as they stay within lawful bounds. They are sheltered by the same freedom of expression that we seek for ourselves, and they are equally subject to public rebuke.”
The AAUP report also says, “Insofar as a particular professor might be thrust into the rough and tumble of the public arena, the law demands, as a prominent legal scholar once put it, a certain toughening of the mental hide. Such is the price of free speech.”
Concerning the understanding of religious liberty on campus, the Center for Survey Research and Analysis at the University of Connecticut conducted surveys for FIRE between December 2002 and April 2003. The surveys involved 1,037 students representing 339 colleges and universities (margin of error is ± 2.8 percent) and 306 administrators from 306 colleges and universities (margin of error is ±5.6 percent).
Among the survey’s findings were that, when asked to name a freedom protected by the First Amendment, about one-fifth, or 21 percent, of administrators and almost one-third, or 30 percent, of students named religion. When asked to name which freedom the First Amendment mentioned first, only 6 percent of administrators and just 2 percent of students correctly answered the freedom of religion.
Even knowing about the First Amendment protection of this right, only 74 percent of students and 87 percent of administrators stated that it is “essential” that students on their campus have this right. Concerning the free exercise of religion (and speech, also), a majority (55 percent) of students would allow religious individuals to spread their religious beliefs only if they did not give offense in doing so, while just 32 percent favored allowing students to spread their religious beliefs by whatever legal means they choose. Administrators were evenly divided, with 41 percent favoring not giving offense and 41 percent favoring whatever legal means chosen.
Surprisingly, even though the free exercise of religion is the first protected right in the Bill of Rights, almost one-fourth, or 24 percent, of administrators believe they have the legal right to prohibit a student religious group from actively trying to convert students to its religion — even though half that number, or 12 percent, think they have the legal right to prohibit a nonreligious student group from actively recruiting members.
Freedom of (voluntary) association is another First Amendment right, but administrators were found to be inconsistent in their views on its application. Less that one-fifth, or 19 percent, of public-college administrators knew that U.S. law (most recently upheld in the 2000 U.S. Supreme Court case of Boy Scouts of America v. Dale) permitted a religious group that believes homosexual behavior is sinful is permitted to exclude homosexuals from joining their group. Nevertheless, 34 percent of public-college administrators believed they have the right to compel students to attend diversity training or sensitivity training to value all sexual preferences regardless of their personal beliefs.
“If the American experiment in liberty is to survive, citizens must both keep alive and cherish the free exchange of ideas, values, and convictions. These survey results are disheartening, but unfortunately they are not surprising,” said FIRE President Alan Charles Kors. “Freedom of speech and freedom to worship are undergoing a frightening and powerful assault.”
Kors said he hoped the survey results would serve as wakeup call for people concerned with religious liberty on campus.
“This survey confirms what students of faith have long perceived — that their fellow students and the administrators either misunderstand or minimize the extent and importance of their First Amendment rights,” said David A. French, author of the Guide to Religious Liberty on Campus, recently published by FIRE. “It is ironic that administrators who are so eager to encourage ‘tolerance’ and ‘diversity’ know so little about the fundamental freedoms that make true diversity and tolerance possible”
Sanders is assistant editor of Carolina Journal.