A UNC System Board of Governors committee on Wednesday advanced a proposal to define “academic freedom” across the state’s public universities, despite pushback from a faculty group and their lawyers.
The policy, which heads to the full board for consideration next month, includes the definition that the system’s Faculty Assembly approved in October. In part, the explanation reads that “academic freedom is the foundational principle that protects the rights of all faculty to engage in teaching, research/creative activities, service, and scholarly inquiry without undue influence.”
But the system added sections that would set the “parameters” of academic freedom for faculty and its “protections” for students, such as the freedom to “take reasoned exception” to ideas presented in their classes.
“Academic freedom is not absolute,” the policy reads, later stating that the term does not protect faculty teaching content that is “clearly unrelated” to their course descriptions or disciplines; using “university resources for political or ideological advocacy”; or refusing to comply with university policies and accreditation standards.
In the eyes of the state chapter of the American Association of University Professors, the restrictions “effectively weaken the definition and historical scope of academic freedom.” That’s according to a letter Raleigh attorneys Mike Tadych and Ashley Fox sent Monday on behalf of the faculty group to three UNC System administrators, including Andrew Tripp, the system’s top lawyer. (The Stevens Martin Vaughn & Tadych law firm, where Tadych and Fox practice, also represents The Assembly.)
The letter did not threaten legal action but raised several concerns about the policy and urged the system to put it on “indefinite hold” until more faculty and students could give their input.
“Irrespective of rationale, the impulse to fence in academic freedom should be disregarded and eschewed,” Tadych and Fox wrote. “The convenience of defining an academic freedom “box” is antithetical to case law, our constitutions, and historical approaches.”
Belle Boggs, president of N.C. AAUP, said in a statement that the group believes the proposal “is a rushed, unnecessary policy that will inhibit research and teaching, especially in disfavored subjects and in interdisciplinary approaches to learning.”
“It is vaguely worded in problematic ways, and it is clearly a response to culture war politics,” Boggs added.
In their letter, Tadych and Fox identified several terms in the policy they felt were vague, which they said could lead to “an academic environment that is inconsistent” with prior interpretations and standards handed down by federal courts. For instance, the policy says students are to be protected from “arbitrary or capricious” academic evaluation but does not elaborate.
The restriction echoes a recent episode at the University of Oklahoma, where an instructor was removed from her teaching duties after she gave a student a failing grade on an assignment in which the student cited the Bible to support her view that “belief in multiple genders” is “demonic,” the Associated Press reported. The student accused the instructor of religious discrimination, and the university said the instructor had been “arbitrary” in her grading. (The professor wrote in her comments on the student’s assignment that she was “not deducting points because you have certain beliefs.”)
Additionally, Tadych and Fox noted that the proposal does not clearly define terms such as the “institutional policies” faculty are required to follow, which could cause confusion when enforcing the new policy.
That also raised a red flag for Duke University professor Don Taylor. In a Substack post, Taylor argued the provision “provides the opportunity for a constituent institution to develop a policy that makes academic freedom toothless in a chosen area.” (Taylor’s professional background is in health policy, but he’s taken an interest in academic freedom in recent years and often writes about the topic.)
“For example, a policy like ‘you cannot talk about slavery’ or ‘you cannot assign a reading that is critical of the U.S.’ or ‘fill in the blank of whatever is controversial in the future’ could practically be banned while claiming to protect academic freedom,” Taylor wrote.
The UNC System doesn’t have such policies impacting classroom instruction, though last year it prohibited universities from requiring students to take courses related to diversity. But restrictions like the ones Taylor cited are not unheard of elsewhere. The Texas A&M University System, for instance, now requires professors to get approval from their school’s president to teach courses that “advocate race or gender ideology, sexual orientation, or gender identity.” Many faculty have criticized the move as a violation of their academic freedom.
Neal Hutchens, a professor at the University of Kentucky who researches free speech in higher education, said it will be crucial for faculty and administrators to understand the policy and the enforcement mechanisms for it to be “more than aspirational.”
“Language and a policy is useful and important, but it really is the devil in the details of implementation,” Hutchens said.
Still, Hutchens said the UNC System considering protections for academic freedom at all is a notable endeavor compared to the actions of other university systems, like Texas A&M.
“While there could be places where people may have qualms with the policy, it’s also encouraging to see a state system that is thinking seriously about what rights that faculty should have in relation to academic freedom, and also the rights of students in learning,” Hutchens said. “We’re unfortunately seeing some states that are going in completely the opposite direction and really trying to dictate very specific details in the classroom and obliterate academic freedom.”