Academic Freedom in the Wired World

by Robert O'Neil

Author	: Robert O'Neil
Publisher	: Harvard University Press
Total Pages	: 328
Release	: 2009-07-01
Genre	: Education
ISBN	: 9780674033726

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In this passionately argued overview, a longtime activist-scholar takes readers through the changing landscape of academic freedom. From the aftermath of September 11th to the new frontier of blogging, Robert O'Neil examines the tension between institutional and individual interests. Many cases boil down to a hotly contested question: who has the right to decide what is taught in the classroom? O'Neil shows how courts increasingly restrict professorial judgment, and how the feeble protection of what is posted on the Internet and written in email makes academics more vulnerable than ever. Even more provocatively, O'Neil argues, the newest threats to academic freedom come not from government, but from the private sector. Corporations increasingly sponsor and control university-based research, while self-appointed watchdogs systematically harass individual teachers on websites and blogs. Most troubling, these threats to academic freedom are nearly immune from legal recourse. Insisting that new concepts of academic freedom, and new strategies for maintaining it are needed, O'Neil urges academics to work together--and across rigid and simplistic divisions between left and right.

Academic Freedom and the Law

by Eric Barendt

Author	: Eric Barendt
Publisher	: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages	: 478
Release	: 2010-11-19
Genre	: Law
ISBN	: 1847318037

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Academic Freedom and the Law: A Comparative Study provides a critical analysis of the law relating to academic freedom in three major jurisdictions: the United Kingdom, Germany and the United States. The book outlines the various claims which may be made to academic freedom by individual university teachers and by universities and other higher education institutions, and it examines the justifications which have been put forward for these claims. Three separate chapters deal with the legal principles of academic freedom in the UK, Germany, and the USA. A further chapter is devoted to the restrictions on freedom of research which may be imposed by the regulation of clinical trials, by intellectual property laws, and by the terms of contracts made between researchers and the companies sponsoring medical and other research. The book also examines the impact of recent terrorism laws on the teaching and research freedom of academics, and it discusses their freedom to speak about general political and social topics unrelated to their work. This is the first comparative study of a subject of fundamental importance to all academics and others working in universities. It emphasises the importance of academic freedom, while pointing out that, on occasion, exaggerated claims have been made to its exercise.

Speak Freely

by Keith E. Whittington

Author	: Keith E. Whittington
Publisher	: Princeton University Press
Total Pages	: 229
Release	: 2019-03-26
Genre	: Education
ISBN	: 0691191522

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Examining such hot-button issues as trigger warnings, safe spaces, hate speech, disruptive protests, speaker disinvitations, the use of social media by faculty, and academic politics, "Speak Freely" describes the dangers of empowering campus censors to limit speech and enforce orthodoxy.

Letters to Power

by Samuel McCormick

Author	: Samuel McCormick
Publisher	: Penn State Press
Total Pages	: 201
Release	: 2015-11-09
Genre	: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN	: 0271072180

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Although the scarcity of public intellectuals among today’s academic professionals is certainly a cause for concern, it also serves as a challenge to explore alternative, more subtle forms of political intelligence. Letters to Power accepts this challenge, guiding readers through ancient, medieval, and modern traditions of learned advocacy in search of persuasive techniques, resistant practices, and ethical sensibilities for use in contemporary democratic public culture. At the center of this book are the political epistles of four renowned scholars: the Roman Stoic Seneca the Younger, the late-medieval feminist Christine de Pizan, the key Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant, and the Christian anti-philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. Anticipating much of today’s online advocacy, their letter-writing helps would-be intellectuals understand the economy of personal and public address at work in contemporary relations of power, suggesting that the art of lettered protest, like letter-writing itself, involves appealing to diverse, and often strictly virtual, audiences. In this sense, Letters to Power is not only a nuanced historical study but also a book in search of a usable past.

Understanding Academic Freedom

by Henry Reichman

Author	: Henry Reichman
Publisher	: JHU Press
Total Pages	: 246
Release	: 2021-10-05
Genre	: Education
ISBN	: 1421442167

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Part of the acclaimed Higher Ed Leadership Essentials series, this book surveys academic freedom's history and its application in today's universities. Academic freedom is once again at the epicenter of the crisis in higher education. A community college instructor in Iowa is pressured to resign after his pro-antifa social media comments garner vicious harassment that administrators find threatening to campus safety. A tenured biology professor at a college on Long Island is threatened with dismissal because she allegedly grades students too strictly. And in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, a conservative activist calls on his followers to take advantage of online classes to send "any and all videos of blatant indoctrination" to his organization so that it might expose and blacklist "leftist professors." These incidents from the 2019–20 academic year represent only the tip of the iceberg. Academic freedom, long heralded as a core value of American higher education, may now be in as much danger as at any time the 1950s. But what is "academic freedom"? A value upheld for one's supporters (but not one's opponents) when discussing a polarizing controversy? Or a narrow claim of privilege by a professorial elite, immune from public accountability? In this concise and compelling book, Henry Reichman, who chaired the American Association of University Professors' Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure for nearly a decade, mounts a rigorous defense of academic freedom and its principal means of protection: the system of academic tenure. Probing academic freedom's role in multiple contexts, Reichman draws on a wealth of historical and contemporary examples to offer the first comprehensive introduction to the concept in all its manifestations. Elucidating its sometimes complicated meanings, Reichman argues that academic freedom—like its cousin, freedom of speech—cannot easily be defined but, instead, emerges from the contextual application of guiding principles developed and modified over time. He also explores why the rise of contingent faculty employment represents the gravest current threat to academic freedom; reveals how academic freedom is complicated by both fiercely polarized campus environments and the emergence of social media that extend speech beyond the lecture halls of the academy; and touches on the rights of students in and out of class, including treatment of student protest movements.

The Trials of Academe

by Amy Gajda

Author	: Amy Gajda
Publisher	: Harvard University Press
Total Pages	: 347
Release	: 2010-02-15
Genre	:
ISBN	: 0674053869

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Once upon a time, virtually no one in the academy thought to sue over campus disputes, and, if they dared, judges bounced the case on grounds that it was no business of the courts. Not so today. As Amy Gajda shows in this witty yet troubling book, litigation is now common on campus, and perhaps even more commonly feared. This book explores the origins and causes of the litigation trend, its implications for academic freedom, and what lawyers, judges, and academics themselves can do to limit the potential damage.

Locus of Authority

by William G. Bowen

Author	: William G. Bowen
Publisher	: Princeton University Press
Total Pages	: 400
Release	: 2017-05-30
Genre	: Education
ISBN	: 0691175667

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"Locus of Authority argues that every issue facing today's colleges and universities, from stagnant degree completion rates to worrisome cost increases, is exacerbated by a century-old system of governance that desperately requires change. While prior studies have focused on boards of trustees and presidents, few have looked at the place of faculty within the governance system. Specifically addressing faculty roles in this structure, William G. Bowen and Eugene M. Tobin ask: do higher education institutions have what it takes to reform effectively from within? Bowen and Tobin use case studies of four very different institutions--the University of California, Princeton University, Macalester College, and the City University of New York--to demonstrate that college and university governance has capably adjusted to the necessities of the moment and that governance norms and policies should be assessed in the context of historical events. The authors examine how faculty roles have evolved since colonial days to drive change but also to stand in the way of it. Bowen and Tobin make the case that successful reform depends on the artful consideration of technological, financial, and cultural developments, such as the explosion in online learning. Stressing that they do not want to diminish faculty roles but to facilitate their most useful contributions, Bowen and Tobin explore whether departments remain the best ways through which to organize decision making and if the concepts of academic freedom and shared governance need to be sharpened and redefined. Locus of Authority shows that the consequences of not addressing college and university governance are more than the nation can afford"--

The American Supreme Court

by Robert G. McCloskey

Author	: Robert G. McCloskey
Publisher	: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages	: 418
Release	: 2016-05-02
Genre	: History
ISBN	: 022629692X

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The sixth edition of the classic and concise account of the US Supreme Court, its history, and its place in American politics. For more than fifty years, Robert G. McCloskey’s classic work on the Supreme Court’s role in constructing the US Constitution has introduced generations of students to the workings of our nation’s highest court. As in prior editions, McCloskey’s original text remains unchanged. In his historical interpretation, he argues that the strength of the Court has always been its sensitivity to the changing political scene, as well as its reluctance to stray too far from the main currents of public sentiment. In this new edition, Sanford Levinson extends McCloskey’s magisterial treatment to address developments since the 2010 election, including the Supreme Court’s decisions regarding the Defense of Marriage Act, the Affordable Care Act, and gay marriage. The best and most concise account of the Supreme Court and its place in American politics, McCloskey’s wonderfully readable book is an essential guide to the past, present, and future prospects of this institution. Praise for The American Supreme Court “The classic account of the American Supreme Court by the mid-twentieth century’s most astute student of American constitutionalism updated by the early twenty-first century’s most astute student of American constitutionalism. This is the first work constitutional beginners should—and constitutional scholars do—turn to.” —Mark Graber, University of Maryland School of Law “Essential. . . . This fifth edition carries on the tradition of earlier iterations, keeping McCloskey’s keen insights, analytical framework, and normative instincts intact. . . . Levinson supplements the original argument with chapters . . . that draw on his remarkable intellectual range and invite readers to continue asking the still-salient questions McCloskey set forth a half-century earlier.” —Choice, on the fifth edition

The Law of Higher Education

by William A. Kaplin

Author	: William A. Kaplin
Publisher	: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages	: 2328
Release	: 2019-04-04
Genre	: Education
ISBN	: 111955120X

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Your must-have resource on the law of higher education Written by recognized experts in the field, the latest edition of The Law of Higher Education offers college administrators, legal counsel, and researchers with the most up-to-date, comprehensive coverage of the legal implications of administrative decision making. In the increasingly litigious environment of higher education, William A. Kaplin and Barbara A. Lee's clear, cogent, and contextualized legal guide proves more and more indispensable every year. Two new authors, Neal H. Hutchens and Jacob H Rooksby, have joined the Kaplin and Lee team to provide additional coverage of important developments in higher education law. From hate speech to student suicide, from intellectual property developments to issues involving FERPA, this comprehensive resource helps ensure you're ready for anything that may come your way. Includes new material since publication of the previous edition Covers Title IX developments and intellectual property Explores new protections for gay and transgender students and employees Delves into free speech rights of faculty and students in public universities Expands the discussion of faculty academic freedom, student academic freedom, and institutional academic freedom If this book isn't on your shelf, it needs to be.