Fight for academic freedom

It’s the first day of a physics class, and students file into a giant lecture hall, weighed down with heavy required readings and questions about syllabi, midterms, finals and grades. Everyone is prepared for the painstaking but unavoidable grind of learning difficult material.

But then the professor makes an announcement. Everyone in the class will receive an A-plus in the course, he’s already decided. In fact, he won’t even be teaching physics. He’ll be teaching whatever he and the students mutually decide they want to learn about ““ in this case, political activism.

The professor believes that academic freedom gives professors and students the right to learn in any way they want. Not surprisingly, not everyone agrees with this interpretation.

While for students it may sound like a dream (the type you might have after falling asleep over books while cramming for midterms), for students in Denis Rancourt’s class at the University of Ottawa, it was a reality.

The rude awakening came earlier this month, when the administration at the University of Ottawa recommended that Rancourt be dismissed. He has been suspended since December.

Rancourt’s case is an extreme one that tests the limits of an individual professor’s academic freedom, the principle that protects differing viewpoints within an educational system. However, academic freedom is not just the right of individual professors. It can also protect a university as a whole from outside influence on determining what should or shouldn’t be taught.

As California ““ and in turn, the UC system ““ faces budget shortfalls or cuts, it may be necessary to prioritize some courses and cut others. If this unpleasant prospect becomes a reality, the university may have to defend the academic freedom to make sure education, not ideology, determines which courses stay.

For example, in Georgia, Republican state representatives recently attempted to ban several courses in gender studies which discussed male prostitution, oral sex and queer theory.

“This is not considered higher education,” said state Rep. Charlice Byrd.

Byrd’s concern was misplaced; when the professors spoke to the House Higher Education Committee, they expressed that while a course that discusses oral sex might bring giggles or blushing, it can still also provide academic value.

However, the larger issue isn’t whether the course had academic value, but whether the legislators should be the ones who decide if it does. The Georgia representatives’ reactions may not be the average reaction, but they do show why decisions about educational content should be left to educators.

In this case, the students who were interested in those courses had administrators and professors to support them. In other cases, students can’t passively wait for the bigger players to decide what education is important. Administrators and professors are very qualified to resolve academic issues (after all, it is their jobs), but they aren’t perfect. In the end, academic freedom is for the benefit of student education, and we need to be our own advocates to ensure that our freedom and education is protected.

In 2007, the UCLA student-run organization L.O.G.I.C. (Liberty, Objectivity, Greed, Individualism and Capitalism), wanted to host a debate on immigration. A controversial speaker sparked threats of violence, said Arthur Lechtholz-Zey, the chief executive officer of L.O.G.I.C., who brought the issue to the Center for Student Programming. Members of the Center said L.O.G.I.C. would have to pay for additional security in order to host the event. The extra security cost was $15,000, and L.O.G.I.C. club members didn’t think they should be financially punished for the event’s content.

“Other universities didn’t do that,” Lechtholz-Zey said.

L.O.G.I.C. had to postpone the debate for almost three months to resolve the dispute with administration, said Lechtholz-Zey.

“The event was much smaller than it would have been (without the financial setbacks),” Lechtholz-Zey said.

However, L.O.G.I.C. members’ persistence set a precedent for other events.

The school finally modified the policy so that costs would be based on the size of the event rather than the content, Lechtholz-Zey said.

Can you imagine a campus where no clubs could ever afford to talk about anything controversial because of administration security fees? We have this dynamic, active campus today not because of a conceptual freedom, but because actual students spoke out when they disagreed with the administration.

A single professor in Ottawa may not be able to break down the system of competitive grading, and maybe no number of students will be able to change such a universal standard of undergraduate education. But we won’t change a thing if we don’t speak out, and part of academic freedom is the right for 20-something-year-old college students to speak our minds, even when more powerful people do not agree.

If you want to give up grades, e-mail Ohlemacher at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].