Letters from the National Campus Director

Academic Freedom Testimony in Pennsylvania · 02 November 2005

On September 19, David French testified before the Select Committee to clarify the constitutional obligations of public universities to protect the rights of their students. Mr. French is the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a non-profit and non-partisan educational group based in Pennsylvania dedicated to defending and sustaining individual rights-including freedom of speech, legal equality, due process and religious liberty-at America's colleges and universities.

His testimony revealed that in numerous instances, Pennsylvania's universities violated constitutional free speech protections for students.

Among the examples cited by French was Millersville University of Pennsylvania which has a speech code that "prohibits the transmission of electronic messages and materials deemed offensive by university policy and by local, state and federal laws."

"Now, who is deeming what offensive?" French asked. "Does any state official have the right to deem written material or communicated material offensive? No, absolutely not. The state does not have the ability to deem words offensive, and, therefore, completely out of bounds."

"Shippensburg University had a speech code which, among other things, prohibited acts of intolerance on campus," French noted. "The problem was, that's a term that's virtually impossible to define….And so that phrase, 'act of intolerance,' has been struck down, but it still lives in some speech codes in this state."

French also quoted the American Association of University Professors' definition of academic freedom, noting that it includes the provision that "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."

"What it means," declared French, "is that a teacher who is teaching, for example, sociology or political science or history has an enormous amount of latitude in determining the curriculum, the readings of the class, the precise topics covered within the subject of the class; they have an enormous amount of freedom in the classroom discussion so long as the classroom discussion remains germane to the topic of the class; and that they in truth should be free from state oversight into those kinds of decisions. Because that is the core academic freedom function of a professor.

"What is a professor not free to do? A professor is not free to use a class - let's say a mathematics class - to advance a particular political agenda. That is something that a university, an institution, can properly restrict without interfering with that professor's First Amendment rights. Their First Amendment rights do not extend to the ability to use the state-provided platform to advocate for personal political goals if those personal political goals are not the subject are germane to the topic of the class."

Following Mr. French's presentation, legislators questioned him for several hours on his experience investigating the lack of constitutional protections on Pennsylvania's campuses and his recommendations for remedying the situation.

The full transcript of David French's testimony may be found here.

News from the Campuses:

The University of Pennsylvania chapter of Students for Academic Freedom has created a comprehensive new website. Among the website's many novel features are a community mailing list, links to coverage of SAF in the campus newspaper, and a complaint center for students for report abuses of academic freedom.

The Ventura College chapter of Students for Academic Freedom also made headlines this past week by holding a debate over proposition 73 which would require parental notification for minors seeking an abortion. While it's very important that SAF chapters not take sides on political issues, it can be extremely valuable to bring greater intellectual diversity to campus by holding debates on issues that might not otherwise be discussed. The Ventura College chapter did exactly that by holding an event that was lauded by both conservatives and liberals and the campus administration. News coverage of the event can be viewed here .

For more information on starting an SAF chapter or bringing the academic freedom movement to your campus, please contact the national campus director Sara Dogan at 202-393-0123 or at Sara@studentsforacademicfreedom.org.

Yours in Freedom,

Sara Dogan
National Campus Director
Students for Academic Freedom

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