AAUP President Cary Nelson and Executive Director Ernest Benjamin have released the following statement regarding Missouri BIll H213.
The Missouri House of Representatives has passed a bill (H 213) which ostensibly “ensure[s] intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas.” The bill, sponsored by legislators and others who are concerned about what they see as the politicalization of the classroom, directs public colleges and universities to report annually to the state legislature steps they have taken to achieve these goals. Possible steps enumerated in the legislation include grievance policies that allow for complaints to be filed “directly with the governing board”; a “balanced variety” of campus speakers; methods to achieve educational objectives that do not require a student “to act against his or her conscience”; and periodic meetings with students to determine if they believe “they are receiving a sound and respectful education.” Moreover, the bill states that intellectual diversity in teaching must protect “the viewpoint that the Bible is inerrant.”
If this bill becomes law, it will do incalculable damage to the independence of Missouri’s state colleges and universities and to academic freedom. A fundamental principle of academic freedom is that decisions concerning the content of academic programs and academic policies are to be made by academic professionals. Some departments, for example, may endorse many schools of thought; others may wish to emphasize a particular disciplinary approach. One institution may conclude that a diverse array of outside speakers makes good academic sense; another may favor a limited range of speakers. And while some individuals may believe that the Bible is inerrant, it is for professors to decide on the basis of their expertise and training and in accordance with standards of the academic profession whether and how that belief may find its way into classroom teaching; it is not for the Missouri legislature to dictate the content of what can be taught. The former is an exercise of academic freedom, the latter an abridgment of it.
The bill threatens to impose legislative oversight on the professional judgment of faculty and to deprive academic institutions of their authority from making decisions that are central to their academic purpose. It would substitute a political body for academic ones, replace academic decisions with political judgments, and therefore open colleges and universities to greater politicalization, not less. The bill’s proponents have not put forward any compelling reasons for adopting a measure that is so at odds with the principles of academic freedom. Indeed, the bill itself would limit and constrain intellectual diversity and the free exchange of ideas. The bill’s infirmities run too deep to be cured with textual refinements. It should be discarded entirely.
(4/17/07)