The Constitution Goes to College: Five Constitutional Ideas That Have Shaped the American University

Conclusion

[ 186 ] 7 Conclusion There is a strong, if not universal or uniform, tradition of faculty participation in school governance, and there are numerous policy arguments to support such participation. . . . This Court has never recognized a constitutional right of faculty to participate in policymaking in academic institutions. . . . Faculty involvement in academic governance has much to recommend it as a matter of academic policy, but it finds no basis in the Constitution. —Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, for the Court in Minnesota State Board for Community Colleges v. Knight (1984) First Amendment freedom to explore novel or controversial ideas in the classroom is closely linked to the freedom of faculty members to express their views to the administration concerning matters of academic governance. —Justice William Brennan, dissenting in Minnesota State Board for Community Colleges v. Knight (1984) The 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure1 provides an excellent vehicle for concluding this book’s exploration of the influence constitutional ideas have had on the identity of public and private American colleges and universities. The 1940 Statement was crafted by representatives of the American Association of University Professors, an organization dedicated to the interests of higher education faculty, and Conclusion [ 187 ] also by the Association of American Colleges, an association of universities and colleges led by college presidents and other senior administrators , representing the institutional interests of colleges and universities. The 1940 Statement, which is a sort of labor-management pact, has over the years been “endorsed” by hundreds of other academic organizations representing a wide range of academic constituencies, and may thus make a solid claim to embodying a broad and enduring consensus that academic freedom is a core defining value of American higher education. The 1940 Statement begins with an elegant fusion of the ideals of AristotleandJohnStuartMill ,declaringthatinstitutionsofhighereducation“are conducted for the common good and not to further the interest of either the individual teacher or the institution as a whole.” In turn, the “common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free exposition.” Academic freedom, the 1940 Statement proclaims, is essential to both teaching and research. Academic freedom is “fundamental to the advancement of truth,” and “fundamental for the protection of the rights of the teacher in teaching and of the student to freedom in learning.” Perhaps because the document was created both by professors and administrators, perhaps because the document recognized the natural link between “rights” and “duties,” perhaps because the document accepted that a university is a community of teachers and learners, the 1940 Statement acknowledges that academicfreedom“carrieswithitdutiescorrelativewithrights.” These general statements of principle and purpose are followed in the 1940 Statement by three aspects of academic freedom: 1. Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties; but research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution. 2. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment. 3. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession , and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or Conclusion [ 188 ] write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution. The 1940 Statement continues to exert a powerful and important influence on higher education in the United States, grounding American colleges and universities in a fundamental commitment to academic freedom. Yet, like many other broad proclamations of rights and freedoms —phrases such as “all men are created equal,” or “due process of law,” or “freedom of speech”—the litany of “shoulds” contained in the 1940 Statement lacks the concrete bite of hard law, which would have required many more “shalls” and “shall nots” to effectively resolve campus conflicts. Perhaps this...