Academic Bill of Rights: What's All The Fuss About?

The entire text of the controversial subject of discussion across university faculty offices and conferences rooms nationwide may be found here:

Academic Bill of Rights , posted by studentsforacademicfreedom.org

Let's go over a few of these to check out just how controversial they are:

Article I: The university's mission

Looking through this brief, precise paragraph it's hard to find anything that the UN would disagree with.

Article II: Academic Freedom
The concept: "human knowledge is a never-ending pursuit of the truth, that there is no humanly accessible truth that is not in principle open to challenge, and that no party or intellectual faction has a monopoly on wisdom...."

Would Kofi Annan disagree?

Article II:
The practice: "Academic freedom consists in protecting the intellectual independence of professors, researchers and students in the pursuit of knowledge and the expression of ideas from interference by legislators or authorities within the institution itself. This means that no political, ideological or religious orthodoxy will be imposed on professors and researchers through the hiring or tenure or termination process, or through any other administrative means by the academic institution. Nor shall legislatures impose any such orthodoxy through their control of the university budget...This protection includes students...."

Except for the leaders of Cuba and North Korea, is this controversial?

Article II: 1. "All faculty shall be hired, fired, promoted and granted tenure on the basis of their competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of their expertise...."

This seems like a thing obvious.

Article II: 2. " No faculty member will be excluded from tenure, search and hiring committees on the basis of their political or religious beliefs...."

Apparently, this only applies to Muslims and atheists. It's controversial when it applies to Christians and especially to Jews. But it's a variation of the UN charter, so what's the deal?

Article II: 3. "Students will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs...."

See previous remark.

Article II: 4. "Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge in these areas by providing students with dissenting sources and viewpoints where appropriate...."

This is what faculty say, but most often among leftist faculty it's what they say as they're dictating a Marxist-feminist diatribe. Maybe this would be controversial.

Article II: 5. "Exposing students to the spectrum of significant scholarly viewpoints on the subjects examined in their courses is a major responsibility of faculty...."

Well, sure, leftist faculty say, as long as the list doesn't include authors who disagree with Marxist-feminist philosophy, so no references to such as Hayek (Road to Serfdom) or anyone who refers favorably to Presidents G W Bush or R W Reagan. Probably controversial too, though it's a standard credo in hard science.

Article II: 6. "Selection of speakers, allocation of funds for speakers programs and other student activities will observe the principles of academic freedom and promote intellectual pluralism...."

"I paid for this microphone" becomes a more important quote of President Reagan as the years go by. If student associations want Ann Coulter or David Horowitz, then they should be able to have them. Probably very controversial....

Article II. 7. "An environment conducive to the civil exchange of ideas being an essential component of a free university, the obstruction of invited campus speakers, destruction of campus literature or other effort to obstruct this exchange will not be tolerated...."

Oh-oh, what will the screamers do without their "right" to drown out other practitioners of free speech? Extremely controversial, except to students, or to any other organization besides a university.

Article II. 8. "To perform these functions adequately, academic institutions and professional societies should maintain a posture of organizational neutrality with respect to the substantive disagreements that divide researchers on questions within, or outside, their fields of inquiry...."

Oh, dear, sounds terribly old-school to me. Where's progressive education in that? Where's that wonderful appeal to collective prejudice in students called student centeredness? Probably extremely controversial.

So there you have it, the Academic Bill of Rights. Read the whole thing at the link. Think about it. Reason together. Decide.

Luther