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[12] 000 Academic Freedom and Tenure EAR L YIN my career as president of Indiana University, I was invited to speak at a forum sponsored by the Senate Avenue Y MeA in Indianapolis on education in a democracy. It was in 1939, just prior to the issuance of the classic statement on academic freedom and tenure by the American Association of University Professors (A A up), and I began by proposing that the principle of academic freedom is basic to education in a democracy. I pointed out that through all this more than a century, the university has actively worked for the preservation and advancement of American democracy by the method that is peculiarly the university's own, namely, fearless inquiry into every subject in search of the truth-fearless inquiry, not only in the "safe" realm of the physical sciences, but in the social sciences as well, even though they deal with the stuff of which human emotions and passions are made. It must be remembered that democratic principles and individual freedoms were at that time once again threatened as they had been in World War I. With more and more foreboding we read of the horrors and conquests of Hitler's Nazi Germany, and many of America's educational leaders began to fear a recurrence of the violation of the academic sphere that accompanied World War I. The AA UP statement came in 1940. By the fall of 1943 it was felt advisable that Indiana University's consistent but unwritten policy on academic freedom be given formal expression, and on September II, 1943, the Board of Trustees adopted the following statement, the first of its kind in the university's history: No restraint shall be placed upon the teacher's freedom in investigation , unless restriction upon the amount of time devoted to [177] 178 THE PRESIDENCY it becomes necessary in order to prevent undue interference with other duties. No limitation shall be placed upon the teacher's freedom in the exposition of his own subject in the classroom or in addresses and publications outside the classroom so long as the statements are not definitely antisocial. No teacher shall claim as his right the privilege of discussing in his classroom controversial topics obviously and clearly outside of his own field of study. The teacher is morally bound not to take advantage of his position by introduction into the classroom of provocative discussions of completely irrelevant subjects admittedly not within the field of his study. The university recognizes that the teacher, in speaking and writing outside the institution upon subjects beyond the scope of his own field of study, is entitled to precisely the same freedom, but is subject to the same responsibility, as attaches to all other citizens. The exposition of the university's tenure policy completed the statement . Undoubtedly the greatest test of this principle of academic freedom resulted from some research that had been started in July, 1938, when Alfred C. Kinsey began the collection of sex histories from individuals. A respected biologist and Starred Man of Science, Dr. Kinsey became interested in the field of human sexuality when he discovered how little sex research was available to guide him in answering questions from his students. Employing the method of his longtime research on gall wasps, taxonomy, he launched an ambitious project to collect 100,000 sex histories of individuals. He knew, of course, that he would encounter opposition in gathering material on a topic involving the intimate lives of people. As he described it: There were attempts by the medical association in one city to bring suit on the ground that we were practicing medicine without a license , police interference in two or three cities, investigation by a sheriff in one rural area, and attempts to persuade the university's administration to stop the study, or to prevent the publication of the results, or to dismiss the senior author from his university connection , or to establish a censorship over all publication emanating from the study.... There were ... threats of legal action, threats of political investigation, and threats of censorship, and for some years there was criticism from scientific colleagues.... Through all of this, the administration of Indiana University stoutly defended our right to do objectively scientific research, and to that defense much of the success of this project is due.1 I. Alfred C. Kinsey, Wardell B. Pomeroy, Clyde E. Martin, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (Philadelphia: W. B. Saunders, 1948), pp. II-I2. [3...

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