September-October 2003

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Twenty-first Alexander Meiklejohn Award

Molly Corbett Broad, president of the University of North Carolina, was the recipient of the twenty-first Alexander Meiklejohn Award for Academic Freedom at the Eighty-ninth Annual Meeting of the AAUP in Washington, D.C. The award is given to an American college or university administrator or trustee, or to a Board of Trustees as a group, in recognition of an outstanding contribution to academic freedom. The Faculty Assembly of the University of North Carolina nominated Broad because of her resistance to demands to cancel the assigned reading of a book on the Koran for incoming students at the Chapel Hill campus. Richard Veit, who was president of the Faculty Assembly at that time, introduced Broad at the meeting.

Veit's Address

In 1969, I was teaching English at a Catholic girls' high school in Cleveland. For a twelfth-grade class in world literature, in addition to plays and novels by Greek, German, Russian, Japanese, Indian, and South African authors, I also chose to assign The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Although neither a foreign work nor a work of fiction, the book, I believed, nicely complemented the other readings in contributing to a goal of the course——introducing students to, and helping them understand, cultures, experiences, and worldviews different from their own.

A few days before our discussion of the book, an irate parent phoned me at my home, very unhappy about what his daughter was reading. His concern was not surprising. In the book, Malcolm detailed his past experiences as a thief, a pimp, and a prison inmate; he was disdainful of Christianity; and he believed, at least until an epiphany at Mecca in his final years, that whites were devils. In talking with the parent, I explained the goals of the assignment and the importance of our understanding other people with whom we share our planet. I attempted to explain the difference between indoctrination and analysis, between a textbook used for instruction and a reading subject to critical examination and discussion. I told the father that I would be leading that discussion, that his daughter was grounded and mature enough to make prudent judgments, and that I hoped he would trust us both.

Not fully convinced, he told me he wanted to be present in the classroom when the book was discussed. I said he would be very welcome—with only one condition—he first had to read the book. Not only that, but I hoped he would join in the discussion. I never saw or heard from him again.

The conversation between that father and me a third of a century ago has taken place again and again, in various forms, before and since, as it did with considerably more publicity this past year in North Carolina. For a summer reading program for incoming first-year students, the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assigned the book Approaching the Qur'án: The Early Revelations by Michael A. Sells, a professor of comparative religion at Haverford College. To the Chapel Hill faculty, the logic of the choice seemed incontrovertible. After September 11, 2001, when encounters between the West and the Islamic world dominate the news, when those encounters have momentous and potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire planet, it is absolutely essential for our two cultures to understand each other. A book introducing students to the Islamic scriptures offered to give students insights into the thinking of that other world and promised as well to supply a basis for lively discussion among students largely steeped in Judeo-Christian traditions.

The first indication of trouble came on July 5, when James Yacovelli, a spokesman for the Family Policy Network, a Christian organization headquartered in Virginia, denounced the assignment on the Fox talk show Hannity and Colmes. According to Yacovelli, the book "didn't portray Islamic culture in a true light," and the assignment was "a veiled coercion to get students to accept Islam from a distorted viewpoint." He said that "the culture [of Islam] is to kill the infidels and drive planes into us and blow us up." He further announced that his organization was seeking students to act as plaintiffs in an action against the university.

Shortly thereafter, the Family Policy Network brought a federal lawsuit on behalf of three incoming Chapel Hill students. The group sought an injunction to halt the discussions on the grounds that by requiring students to read parts of the Koran, the university, as a state-funded institution, was violating the constitutional separation of church and state.

Polemics on the topic quickly multiplied throughout the media, and the controversy was suddenly national and even world news. The assignment had its stout defenders; notably, on the Chapel Hill campus, chancellor James Moeser and faculty chair Susan Estroff, among many others.

At this point, politicians got into the act, and the assignment was attacked on a second front. A member of the North Carolina House of Representatives proposed an amendment to the state budget appropriation, which he titled "No Funding for Required Courses on One Religion." Its wording was as follows:

No state funds or overhead receipts may be expended by a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina to offer for entering freshman students prior to their first semester for credit or otherwise any course or summer reading program in any religion unless all other known religions are offered in an equal or incremental way.

Never has legislation, while cloaked in support for a general principle, been aimed more specifically at one college reading assignment. As if to demonstrate that words can mean exactly the opposite of what they say, the amendment concluded: "This section is not intended to interfere with academic freedom, but to ensure that all religions are taught in a nondiscriminatory fashion." The amendment passed an initial vote and was included in the House version of the proposed state budget.

By denying that this assault on academic freedom was what it was, at least the amendment had the virtue of bringing attention to the real issue. I was not a member of the Chapel Hill faculty, so my concern, as chair of the elected body representing the faculty of all sixteen UNC campuses, was not with the merits of a particular assignment. Whether the Chapel Hill faculty had made a good or a poor choice in assigning the Koran reading was irrelevant. What was at stake was the larger question of academic freedom itself: do the faculty of a university have the right to examine ideas, teach topics, and assign readings of their own choosing, as their academic expertise and professional judgment lead them to deem best?

At this time, the university system's Board of Governors held its August meeting, and here events inadvertently worked their way to bring further notoriety to the issue. While the Koran controversy was certainly a matter for discussion in the hallways, other issues and concerns were capturing the board's attention, principally the university's appropriation in the state budget, then under active consideration in the legislature. With the state facing an unprecedented deficit, many tens of millions of dollars for the university hung in precarious balance. Lobbying the legislature is a careful and delicate enterprise, and the regard with which the university is held by our legislators is a matter of no small concern for the board.

The committee of the Board of Governors under whose jurisdiction educational issues lie, the Committee on Academic Planning, Policies, and Programs, was fighting another worthy battle at the time, warding off attempts by the legislature to mandate new programs on various campuses. Board members rightly deplored what was perceived as a serious abridgment of faculty and board prerogatives in programmatic decisions and as an undermining of the consolidated UNC structure. Consequently, the committee meeting schedule did not permit extensive discussion of the academic-freedom issue related to the Koran assignment or for the development of a polished motion on the subject. It was, however, informally agreed that a motion would subsequently be drafted for presentation the next day to the entire board. At the time, the fact that a motion was discussed in principle but not voted on in committee did not seem significant, but it was to prove so later.

The following day, at the full Board of Governors meeting, committee member Ray Farris introduced a worthy motion in support of academic freedom, which read:

Resolved, that the Board of Governors supports students, faculties, and administrations of the university's sixteen campuses in their commitment to freedom—religious, academic, and political; their exchange of ideas; their examination of different cultures; and their working to understand conflicting values of all kinds, with the confidence that thoughtful study and intellectual inquiry are fundamental to this university and the goal of this board.

Many board members spoke to express support for the principle and the motion. While there was some criticism of the assignment, the only issue in contention was a pragmatic one—whether a board motion would do more good than harm—and a motion was introduced to table the main motion until the September meeting, safely after the budget would be in place. Some in favor of tabling argued that the motion would jeopardize university funding at a delicate time. Others expressed confidence that the House amendment on the Koran book would fade away in the legislative process and never be enacted into law and that no action by the Board of Governors was needed. Others, the majority, argued strenuously for the principle of academic freedom and the necessity for the board to support it when it was under attack. The motion to table failed, and I think everyone then expected the motion to pass by a comfortable majority.

At that point, however, as the main motion was to be voted on, the parliamentarian ruled that the bylaws required a two-thirds vote to pass a motion that had not been voted on in committee. This was an error—suspending the agenda to allow a motion should have required a two-thirds majority, but the motion itself should have needed only a simple majority—and again the consequences of this error proved significant. From the discussion that followed, it became clear that those who had voted earlier to table now regarded the subsequent vote (incorrectly) as a second opportunity to table, rather than a vote on academic freedom per se. When the vote was taken, eighteen members voted to pass the motion, and ten opposed. In other words, the pro vote, although a substantial majority, was one shy of the two-thirds ruled necessary to pass it. The board then recessed prior to going into closed session.

During the recess, I spoke to the board's chair and noted that the board had just gone on record opposing academic freedom, and I predicted that this vote would receive wide publicity. It was then, too, that university president Molly Broad exerted her far more considerable and effective influence with the board. She spoke with members, explaining the consequences of their action, the role of free inquiry as the core and essential foundation of higher education, our university's long-standing tradition of defending it, and the overt commitment to academic freedom embodied in the Code of the UNC Board of Governors, the university's official governing document. When open session resumed, President Broad publicly expressed concern about the board's action on the resolution. She stated her concern that a failure to fully endorse the concept of academic freedom would risk bringing inquiry or sanctions from the AAUP and could raise questions from our accrediting body. She urged the board to rescind its prior vote, and the board then did so, unanimously, referring the motion back to the Academic Planning Committee.

By this time, however, much damage had been done. The board's vote and its sudden reversal made it seem vacillating, weak, and even craven, and the headline in my hometown paper was typical: "Board waffles on Islam book." The Board of Governors was taken to task in editorials and letters nationwide.

Clearly embarrassed, the board quickly convened a special meeting of its Academic Planning Committee to repair the damage. Many board members read statements strongly defending academic freedom. President Broad spoke forcefully on the subject, and her admirable statement has been reprinted in Academe. In it, she made a reasoned case for academic freedom, and she reiterated her support for the policies and statements of [the AAUP]. She concluded her address to the committee with the following exhortation:

[A]s leaders entrusted with the oversight and governance of one of the very finest public universities in the nation, we have a clear duty to uphold and passionately defend the right of faculty on every UNC campus to define the curriculum, to examine and to debate ideas, however popular or unpopular those choices might be, and however much the state's nonuniversity leaders may agree or disagree with a specific campus decision.

The historic tenets of academic freedom set forth in the Code still define this university. And they are as important and as relevant today as when they were adopted by the very first Board of Governors. If we allow them to be diminished, we inflict irreparable harm to the academic stature and reputation of the entire university. For all of these reasons, I urge you to adopt . . . a resolution that reaffirms without reservation this university's long-standing policy in support of academic freedom.

The committee and, shortly afterward, the full Board of Governors, unanimously adopted a strong and unambiguous resolution upholding their commitment to that essential principle.

How then did the entire controversy play itself out? First, the amendment in the North Carolina legislature to prohibit the assignment expired quietly and was never enacted into law. The lawsuit brought by the organization in Virginia was dismissed by the courts as without merit. The university went ahead with its discussions. Although participation was made voluntary, record numbers of incoming students participated-there is nothing like attempts to ban a book to get students interested in reading it. By all accounts, discussion was thoughtful and lively and accomplished the assignment's goals, although the prevailing view among participants who read the book was, "What's the big deal?" Finally, our university's governing board, many of whose members had previously had a very incomplete understanding of academic freedom at best, have been educated and can be counted on in future battles. And what of the opponents of academic freedom? I would like to say they were vanquished, but I am afraid they received all the publicity they sought, and we have by no means heard the last of them.

As I said in my own remarks to the board's committee, "Academic freedom is a powerful idea, but it is constantly under attack, and it exists only when it is vigilantly and vigorously defended." Over the years, many have defended the core principles of our profession, including some who, in doing so, have gone down to glorious defeat. President Molly Broad, whom we honor here tonight, is an effective leader who always prefers the quiet victory to defeat, however glorious. For her effective leadership in this fight, the 13,000 faculty of the University of North Carolina—and all members of our profession as well as all supporters of liberty—owe Molly Broad a debt of gratitude. The honor she is about to receive is richly deserved.

Broad Response

Let me begin by expressing my deepest thanks to [AAUP] general secretary Mary Burgan, associate general secretary Jordan Kurland, Professor Joan Wallach Scott [the chair of the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure and a member of the Meiklejohn Award committee], and Professor Veit for their kind words and support of my nomination. I cannot tell you how very much it means to me that this nomination came from the faculty leadership at the University of North Carolina. It is a very special honor for me to receive the twenty-first Alexander Meiklejohn Award. I do not consider myself deserving of this recognition, and I am deeply honored to be presented with such an acknowledgment of my work by the AAUP. This occasion will be forever marked in my heart and mind.

I have had the good fortune to spend my entire professional career in higher education, serving in five states at both the campus and the system levels. I am immensely privileged today to serve as president of the University of North Carolina—the very first public university in America to open its doors to students. Indeed, universities remain one of the oldest and most valued institutions of modern history. They have endured over many centuries—not by coercion or force—but by the timeless, transcending power of their fundamental values and principles.

These core values include a commitment to unfettered freedom of inquiry and expression, as well as tolerance and respect for the dignity of all persons and differing points of view. These guiding principles have created the ideal training ground for an informed and enlightened citizenry, and they remain the very foundation of the American university. For stripped to its very essence, the university needs nothing more than dedicated faculty, bright students, and the opportunity for ideas of all stripes to be fully engaged. The strength of a belief or an idea must be measured by its ability to stand on its own merits, subject to challenge, debate, and rebuttal.

In such an arena, university faculty are expected to push the frontiers of new knowledge. As part of their educational experience, students are expected to learn about new ideas, philosophies, and practices that they may never have encountered before and that may differ from their own. They also are expected to seek the deeper knowledge that author Thomas Wolfe described as "finding out—with pain, with joy, with exultancy (and) with labor"—the knowledge that enlarges our spirit, helps us to understand the human condition, and enriches our lives as individuals and as part of a community.1 Such pursuit defines the "life of the mind."

Democratic society requires that all institutions—including the university—be responsive to the needs of the people. Our collective commitment to uphold that duty is implicit in our historic three-part mission of teaching, research, and public service. Yet while there are certainly political dimensions to most human problems, the university must never allow its response to public or political pressures to violate the integrity of our first principles. As Dr. Meiklejohn often eloquently reminded us, freedom of inquiry and expression is not a privilege or natural right of democracy. To the contrary, it is a practical necessity of democratic self-government.2 Perhaps this explains why the university's commitment to these enduring principles has been tested at various times in our history, most often in times of war or conflict. And it reveals how these same values have sustained our institutions over time and enabled them to withstand repeated assaults.

In my own state, the Cold War paranoia bred by Senator Joe McCarthy was at work well into the 1960s. On the final day of the 1963 legislative session, the North Carolina General Assembly passed without discussion or debate what came to be known as the Speaker-Ban Law. Under this statute, no state-supported college or university could invite or accommodate any speaker who was known to be a member of the Communist Party, was known to advocate the overthrow of the federal or state constitution, or had ever pleaded the Fifth Amendment in refusing to answer any question before a legal or governmental body. For five long years, our universities were held hostage under this law until it was ultimately declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. During this time, the university's faculty developed what was then a defiant and is now an honored phrase, "We will go over the wall," to convey their conviction about free inquiry. As the Charlotte Observer editorialized, "Few words or pictures have been more humiliating for the University of North Carolina than the photograph of a banned speaker talking to students across a campus wall. A university cannot wall out ideas; a picture of one compelled to try was not edifying."3

More recently, as our nation has battled a faceless brand of terrorism that respects no borders, many legislators and citizens have vented their innermost fears and frustrations at the university. As you have heard from Professor Veit, last year's well-intentioned request by UNC-Chapel Hill that all new first-year and transfer students read a specified book about the culture of the Middle East generated a firestorm of political, religious, and legal controversy.

Different decades. Different scenarios. Only one defensible course of action. As individuals, we might agree or disagree with the varying perspectives and arguments expressed in each of these instances and still respect the thoughtful views of others. But as university leaders, we have a clear and nonnegotiable duty to uphold and passionately defend the right of faculty on every university campus to define the curriculum, to examine and to debate ideas—however popular or unpopular those choices might be, and however much elected and other non-university leaders may agree or disagree with a specific university decision. The historic tenets of academic freedom still define the American university, and if we allow them to be diminished, we inflict irreparable harm to the academic stature and reputation of the academy.

Recent developments confirm that we cannot become complacent—that we must be ever vigilant in the protection of these core values. Federal agencies, for example, are attempting to place growing restrictions on the publication of research findings related to materials that are viewed as "sensitive, but not classified." In the name of guarding against terrorism, we are seeing overly simplistic and restrictive prescriptions imposed as a substitute for careful academic judgments. We must argue vigorously to maintain the appropriate balance between security and openness. As an essential principle of the academy, openness contributes to the highest-quality educational experience for our students. We know that excellence in scholarship depends upon this same openness so that the candid evaluations and constructive criticisms of peers can help to advance our understanding. We also know that progress in all academic fields of study depends upon openness of publication, openness in the exchange of ideas, and openness in participation across international boundaries.

Within the University of North Carolina, we have urged our campuses to negotiate strenuously for the removal of such restrictive clauses from our federal grants and contracts. I am happy to report that we have met with considerable success in this effort.

Another example of the importance of standing behind our values of openness as well as of privacy is in the recent activities of the recording and the motion picture industries. There has been considerable media coverage about increased efforts by the recording industry to curtail the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted music files from the Internet.

Most American universities treat the Internet and attending network services as yet another academic forum and resource. Technology leaders at these institutions therefore follow the guiding principles of academic freedom and fair use in copyright in developing policies and practices for network management and policy administration. While individual institutions vary widely in mission and culture, there is general consensus that the effective management of campus resources must include upholding the responsible use of limited resources; protecting the privacy of students, faculty, and staff; and obeying the laws of the land. Contemplated federal legislation that would force policies and practices prohibiting acceptable and legitimate usage of peer-to-peer technologies would threaten the central values of the higher-education community. In a related vein, we are being pressured by federal and state authorities to construct thicker "firewalls" around our computer networks in the name of national security. Internet2, an organization whose board I chair, has been working with national security officials, and I am hopeful that we will find a solution that honors our values of openness and free exchange, while at the same time providing essential protection so that universities do not become, unwittingly, the instruments for cyberterrorism.

As university leaders, we must adapt to changes in technology and the legal landscape in very technical ways, but in doing so, we must remain grounded in the basic, fundamental values of the university and our historic commitment to openness in academic discourse and in the exchange of ideas. Fortunately, there are laws that allow this debate to continue with some very important protections in place.

In closing, I would observe that the struggle for academic freedom far predates the modern university as we know it. Recall that in ancient Greece, Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens with his radical ideas. And while I am confident that none of us will ever be asked to make this ultimate sacrifice, it is certain that the struggle for academic freedom must outlive us all.

I am a proud alumna of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. In the rotunda of the Maxwell School, there is inscribed in stone a powerful excerpt from the Athenian oath. That same ancient text—which has helped shape and temper my professional life—has hung over my desk for more than thirty years. It reads:

We will ever strive for the ideals and sacred things of the city, both alone and with the many; we will unceasingly seek to quicken the sense of public duty; we will revere and obey the city's laws; [and] we will transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better, and more beautiful than it was transmitted to us.

The American university is a community—a great city—of scholars. And as curators charged with preserving and safe-keeping the core values of the academy, we have a solemn duty to transmit our institutions to the next generation of scholars not only not less, but greater, better, and more beautiful than they were transmitted to us.

I am pleased to join you in that noble cause.

Notes:

1. Thomas Wolfe, The Web and the Rock, chapter 23. Back to text.
2. Alexander Meiklejohn, Free Speech and Its Relation to Self Government, 1948. Back to text.
3. Charlotte Observer, 16 March 1966. Back to text.