Friday, January 13, 2023

Academic Freedom Is Not a Matter of Opinion

Students should not decide a college's curriculum. 

...if you don't want your traditions, beliefs, or views challenged, then don't come to a university, at least not to study anything in the humanities or the social sciences... Pres. Miller's view, it seems, is that academic freedom really only means as much freedom as your most sensitive students can stand, an irresponsible position that puts the university, the classroom, and the careers of scholars in the hands of students who are inexperienced in the subject matter, new to academic life, and, often, still in the throes of adolescence.

This, as I have written elsewhere, is contrary to the very notion of teaching itself. (It is also not anything close to the bedrock 1940 statement on the matter from the American Association of University Professors.) The goal of the university is to create educated and reasoning adults, not to shelter children against the pain of learning that the world is a complicated place. Classes are not a restaurant meal that must be served to students' specifications; they are not a stand-up act that must make students laugh but never offend them... Tom Nichols, Atlantic

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