Ought faculty and academic professionals feel a strong sense of civic responsibility on account of the nature of our work? What is the basis for such a sense of duty?
Academic freedom. I regularly feel the need to unpack this value in order gain a grasp on its demands, and as I do, it starts to reveal the distinct source of our civic responsibility. Without making any great claims for my thinking, I would like to share it briefly, if for no other reason, because it allows us to examine the premises of our work as a statewide association for the academic class.
Academic freedom is constituted by protections for inquiry and speech in colleges and universities against abuses of concentrated power — power concentrated inside universities, and outside. Now and again, free inquiry inevitably clashes with a vested interest more powerful than the individual university professor or academic professional. For the chilling effect to spread; for academic work to become corrupted and lose its independence, it only takes a salient case of career prospects and family livelihood lost. AAUP was founded a century ago to build a bulwark against this danger. Unfortunately, to this day the need continues for our national association to investigate and censure universities for egregious violations of academic freedom. Fortunately, we have and support a national association to do this work.
I believe — which in our academic world means, I’ve though about and reach the conclusion — that academic freedom has a connection to the public interest that is unique, and different from privileges extended to other professions. Academic freedom is not simply a privilege that society, or the state, extends in return for some public service by the academic class. Academic freedom is a requirement for society itself, free and civilized. Hell it would be, and hell it is, to live in a country, in a society, where un-checked power subordinates advanced pursuit of knowledge. Humanity has descended into that hell too many times to count in the last century alone. If university professors and academic professionals have one overriding ethical responsibility that cuts across the wide variety of our work, it would be the defense of academic freedom. We are also in the best position to act as a front line of defense, as we are the first to feel its breach in our daily work. But I have also reached the conclusion that the responsibility that comes with academic freedom extends further.
How do we monitor threats to academic freedom? How do we protect it? How do we remain motivated to do so? How do we resist urges and invitations to look the other way? What kind of investments, financial (local, state, national association dues, etc.), organizational, and especially, volunteer time, are minimally required from us?
As these questions make clear, our obligation in relation to academic freedom is a big project for many reasons. But it seems to me that to remain healthy and firm, our associations must also be a voice for, and act in the public interest — for justice — in all its facets. I just don’t think it possible to be a responsible steward for one part of the public interest — academic freedom — while ignoring others. Doing so seems to invite a narrowing of our ethical view and unfortunate, if unwitting, complicities with betrayals of justice elsewhere.
Once we recognize this broader duty that extends from our stewardship of academic freedom, the list of demands on our ethical commitments gets long. But it is not difficult to appreciate some issues demanding our urgent attention today. Three stand out in my mind at the time of this writing, but there are many others that can make an important claim on our time and attention. First, the dwindling number of students who enjoy the freedom to pursue a university education — to pursue it free from extraordinary work, financial, and emotional burdens (the concentration of stress on campuses and classrooms is palpable, and might in part explain painful events we are witnessing with more frequency). Second, the growing economic and political inequalities tearing at our social fabric (at the university as well). Third, persistent discrimination, in all its forms, and the cultural and institutional habits that enable it, and which have the result of making some lives matter more than others (with tragic consequences, highlighted in our day by the #blacklivesmatter citizens movement).
I think it would be our shame were we blind to the broader responsibility that derives from our role as the stewards for academic freedom. Academic freedom and its worth would be much diminished. We can rightfully feel some pride that AAUP-Oregon, and our other affiliations — our national AAUP, and our campus chapters at OSU, PSU, UO, Willamette, Linfield, and across the country — with greater frequency, and more visibly, are speaking and acting on matters of justice outside the academy, and beyond a narrow conception of the ivory tower. It is also fair to say that we ought and need to aim higher still.
- Jose Padin, President, AAUP-OR