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Despite having one of the largest and fastest-growing post-secondary sectors in the world, there has been increasing protest against the lack of academic freedom within HEIs in India in the past decade. This research study carries out a comparative analysis of academic freedom within HEIs in India and the U.S., with a specific focus on how the notion is formulated within key policy documents and the provisions to safeguard it. Preliminary data from the systematic review revealed that while policy documents within both the countries frame the notion along similar lines, various sections within the Indian Penal Code are used to criminalize useful dissent and freedom of expression within HEIs. The study recommends that in order to safeguard academic freedom in India, certain specific sections within the Indian Penal Code (Section 124A, Section-153A, Section-292, Section-295A) should be either repealed or reformulated so that they are not amenable to misuse by the government.

The agenda of "A Crucible Moment: College Learning & Democracy's Future," "commissioned," "funded," and "nurtured" by the U.S. Department of Education, is nothing less than an attempt to implement a "transformation" of America by "transform[ing] current academic norms about what counts as scholarship." The author suggests that people may remember this document as the federal government's official announcement of the death of true scholarship and independent thought. The aims of what is presented as civic education are stated clearly by project directors as well as the many other individuals who contributed in different capacities to producing the report. They are to "eliminate persistent inequalities, especially those in the United States determined by income and race, in order to secure the country's economic and civic future" and to address the "pressing issues" of "growing global economic inequalities, climate change and environmental degradation, lack of access to quality health care, economic volatility, and more," all deemed "transformations necessary for this generation." (Contains 4 footnotes.)

This paper was invited as a commentary on the keynote paper for this special issue by Simon Marginson and Lili Yang. The paper begins by noting the importance of a fully balanced approach to comparison in higher education, that gives equal value and weight to Sinic and Anglo-American views by adopting a transpositional approach and also recognising the linguistic challenges involved. It then considers strengths of the Sinic approach and of the contrasting Anglo-American approach and their outcomes over history, using a frame drawn from recent work by Francis Fukuyama. Finally it turns to weaknesses on both sides, and ways in which learning from the other could make a difference. [For Marginson and Yang's, "Individual and Collective Outcomes of Higher Education: A Comparison of Anglo-American and Chinese Approaches," see EJ1323341.]

The purpose of this paper is to identify the special features of the governance structures of research universities in four western countries: the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Conceptual framework was laid out as groundwork of the paper. Scholarly work of known authors in higher education governance was reviewed with major features of the governance of the research universities of these countries identified and discussed with reflection of the conceptual framework. It was found in common that major research universities have (1) governance structure with responsibilities of components specifically defined; (2) distinct separation of business affairs and academic work; (3) good collaboration among the entities of their governance structure; and (4) great respect for academic freedom and independence.

In this article, the author relates his experience of being attacked for teaching American history at a rural school in north Alabama using a critical, more inclusive approach to American history and social studies. He describes how he struggled with the notion of perspective in teaching primary documents, particularly papers written by those not in power at the time. With the intention of providing students with differing sides to the nation's history, the author had chosen the works of historian Howard Zinn, particularly "Voices of A People's History of the United States," because Zinn represented a radical, revisionist (even Marxist) version of American history. Because of this approach, the author faced opposition from parents who protested his teaching approach for using these excerpts from Zinn's book. From this experience, the author presents key lessons he learned which could be useful for teachers who find their methods or material under scrutiny and attack. He concludes this paper by reminding educators that only by attempting to teach how different groups in American history have interacted positively, as well as negatively, can teachers hope to instill notions of social justice in their students. (Contains 1 note.)

This paper presents perceptions of China's Confucius Institute project held by different stakeholders in China and the USA. A number of studies have been published in each place since the first establishment of Confucius Institutes in 2004, but there has not been a comparative study to date. The study, which draws on media reports related to significant milestones in the development of Confucius Institutes, shows that, in the USA, the institutes are viewed with a considerable degree of ambivalence. They are attractive for universities seeking engagement with China, but also seen as a threat to academic freedom. Domestically, Confucius Institutes are perceived as a way to soften China's international image and to promote the Chinese language and culture, although some concerns have been raised about the cost and transparency of the initiative. The paper highlights the controversial aspects of the institutes and outlines some of the challenges facing China in making the strategy effective.

This paper is a preliminary attempt to establish a working definition of academic freedom for the European Union states. The paper details why such a definition is required for the European Union and then examines some of the difficulties of defining academic freedom. By drawing upon the experience of the legal difficulties beset by the concept in the USA and building on previous analyses of constitutional and legislative protection for academic freedom, and of legal regulations regarding institutional governance and academic tenure, a working definition of academic freedom is then derived. The resultant definition, which, it is suggested, could form the basis for a European "Magna Charta Libertatis Academicae", goes beyond traditional discussions of academic freedom by specifying not only the rights inherent in the concept but also its accompanying duties, necessary limitations and safeguards. The paper concludes with proposals for how the definition might be tested and carried forward.

A study of political, behavioral, and institutional differences between Canada and the United States is seen as offering an explanation of the considerable differences in higher education in the two countries. Focus is on priority given to education, incidence of public and private institutions, innovation, accreditation, and academic freedom. (MSE)

Nine faculty associations in Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, and the United States have approved the preliminary draft of an International Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The statement was developed in response to "existing and potential threats to higher education and to principles which are fundamental to the universities." (MLW)

The commonplace justification of academic freedom, described in terms of professional norms and practices of the professoriate, often cites advancing the public interest in knowledge creation as a key basis for academic freedom. Yet the public's role remains underspecified, its interests loosely defined, and it is increasingly imagined as opposite the professoriate in this justification. Using the example of the U.S. government's effort to control and ultimately destroy the archived papers of convicted murderer and former professor Theodore Kaczynski through a "murderabilia" auction, we explore the relationship between the public's freedom of inquiry and access to information, on the one hand, and academic freedom of the professoriate, on the other. We argue that the public's broad, yet poorly recognized freedom of inquiry under the First Amendment is in some ways analogous to the academic freedom of faculty described by application of professional norms. While we seek to clarify the boundary between these freedoms, we argue that they can be mutually reinforcing to the benefit of both academics and the broader public. We conclude that more is to be gained by such rethinking of the relationship of the public to academic freedom than by the current attempts to refine the professoriate's position in the corporate hierarchy of the university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US global leadership in science and technology has greatly benefitted from immigrants from other countries, most notably from China in the recent decades. However, feeling the pressure of potential federal investigations since the 2018 launch of the China Initiative, scientists of Chinese descent in the United States now face higher incentives to leave the United States and lower incentives to apply for federal grants. Analyzing data pertaining to institutional affiliations of more than 200 million scientific papers, we find a steady increase in the return migration of scientists of Chinese descent from the United States to China. We also conducted a survey of scientists of Chinese descent employed by US universities in tenured or tenure- track positions (n = 1,304), with results revealing general feelings of fear and anxiety that lead them to consider leaving the United States and/or stop applying for federal grants. If the situation is not corrected, American science will likely suffer the loss of scientific talent to China and other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the position of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) on dental issues in the U.S. as approved by the 2003 House of Delegates. The ADEA requires dental education institutions to include in their curricula instruction in peer review. It emphasizes that the principles of instructional autonomy and academic freedom in faculty members are not negotiable. It stresses that the public health needs require a health care system that provides access to care.

Publicly funded schools are supposed to serve everyone equally in egalitarian, liberal democracies. In this paper we claim that school music ensembles fail, on the whole, to adequately reflect current socio-demographic patterns in both Canada and the United States. From a postcolonial perspective we attempt to problematize, with reference to political philosophy and educational theory, some of the fundamental issues of representation, autonomy, essentialism, and freedom as they relate to school music ensembles. (Contains 11 notes.)

This paper explores creative responses to global educational, financial and ethical crises. The focus is the potential intersection between academic, Internet and media freedoms. At base, it asks whether there are rights (of definition, use and control) associated with each of these. For instance, is unfettered access to the Internet a human right or is it analogous to a public utility? Does it matter to the polity if media freedoms are filtered and curtailed? And is academic freedom influenced, concerned or affected by either (or both) of the above? In an environment in which formerly ranked certainties no longer hold sway, new forms of international learning and global university behaviours are essential. I argue that exploring and defining an ethical curriculum is where the process begins; invoking it in terms of international research is where it travels; and changing the world inside and outside the campus is the ultimate destination. (Contains 1 note.)

In August 1945, Imperial Japan surrendered to the Allied Powers. From September 1945 to April 1952, the United States occupied the defeated country. Douglas MacArthur, an American army general and the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), attempted to transform Japanese society from an authoritarian regime into a budding democracy. Japan's new constitution, written in English in one week by MacArthur's General Headquarters (GHQ) in Tokyo, guaranteed every citizen freedom of expression and academic freedom. The notorious "Red Purge" was instituted nationwide in the final phase of the occupation, from July 1947 to March 1951, and proved to be a critical test for the survival of academic freedom. The GHQ ordered the Japanese Cabinet to fire communists and their sympathizers from private companies, government offices, and all educational institutions. American educator Dr. Walter C. Eells, who served at GHQ as adviser on higher education, became a central figure in the "Red Purge" of Japan's educational system, and thus emerged as one of the most infamous figures of the U.S. occupation. Between July 1949 and May 1950, GHQ's Civil Information and Education Section (CIE) dispatched Eells to thirty national universities to call for the immediate dismissal of communist professors. Often the Eells case is interpreted solely from the Japanese perspective. But this article aims to reveal the complex internal tensions and discussions within the CIE and, in particular, elaborates Eells's own view. An awareness of these hidden but critical factors offers a more refined understanding of the "Eells typhoon ("Iruzu senpu")," as the Japanese called it at the time. In order to place the Red Purge in Japan in a broader context, the author presents an overview of anticommunist sentiment in the United States. (Contains 100 footnotes.)

M. Karen Powers and Catherine Chaput's ""Anti-American Studies" in the Deep South: Dissenting Rhetorics, the Practice of Democracy, and Academic Freedom in Wartime Universities" begins a much needed discussion about the current and ongoing assaults against academic freedom in American universities, which have not received adequate treatment within the professional journals in the last six years. As a welcome corrective to this absence of commentary and critique, Powers and Chaput effectively employ Fredric Jameson's provocative conception of the political unconscious to trace the ways in which academic freedom has been curtailed for those scholars pursuing lines of argument and inquiry that contextualize, explore, problematize, and challenge central tenets of U.S. foreign policy and the imperial past upon which it is based. Academic freedom is typically viewed as the defining feature of university life, providing researchers with the protection to do important work within an environment where knowledge production and truth--wherever these may lead--are valued above all else. Coercive tactics, threats against one's livelihood, and political intimidation are viewed as being anathema to the conditions of possibility for academic freedom's flourishing; however, every academic knows these unfortunate things exist within the corporatized university. Powers and Chaput's timely essay forces a recognition of how powerful and overwhelming the cultural and political forces at home in a time of war can truly be, silencing even the most intrepid social critic and forcing her to half-heartedly utter patriotic shibboleths so as not to be recognized as "an enemy in our midst." The political unconscious that Powers and Chaput describe goes a long way in explaining why so many remain silent in such desperate times. (Contains 6 notes.)

The author examines the reluctance of most American colleges and universities to address grade inflation. In addressing the problem of grade inflation, the author describes two proposals he made to his faculty's Educational Planning Committee. The first, presented in spring 2002, proposed that two new items be added to each course listed on students' transcripts: the number of students in the course section and the average grade awarded. At the end of the transcript, a cumulative average of all the grades in all of the course sections would be listed alongside the student's own cumulative average. Anyone examining the transcript could thus see how well the student had performed relative to the other students in his or her courses. The author counters the following three objections from faculty colleagues: (1) All students can excel; (2) Academic freedom extends to grading; and (3) We must not disadvantage our students. Following the Academic Council's rejection of the author's transcript-notation measure, he proposed that that the university registrar make available to all department chairs, at the end of every semester (1) the average grade given in each course taught in the department, and (2) the average grade awarded by each department in the school or college for that semester. This second proposal passed the Educational Planning Committee in 2004 but was voted down by the Academic Council. The primary objection was that this information might be used against a professor in the tenure, promotion, or merit-pay processes. The author's experience suggests that anyone seeking to curb grade inflation must, early in the process, thoroughly inform the various constituencies of the ways in which they are collectively harmed by the inflation. (Contains 11 resources.)

The Chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, Robert Birgeneau, told "Time" magazine recently that America is in "an economic war" with the world and "the importance of investing in long-term research for winning that war hasn't been understood". This article argues that such comments are not just metaphorical or unfortunate word choices, but instead reveal deep truths about the role of American universities globally. The fact that people such as Birgeneau, as head of a "world class" university, line up so readily behind US nationalism and militarism has serious implications for how we need to understand higher education not just in America but worldwide.

Using Frederic Jameson, we outline concentric circles of the political unconscious structuring debates about academic freedom at the national and state levels. By drawing parallels between the World War I university and the contemporary university, we suggest that such circles function historically, always bearing traces of an earlier time. To illustrate implications at one local site, we discuss the "Anti-American Studies" fliers repeatedly posted in our department and end by emphasizing the importance of using critical writing pedagogies to encourage opportunities for dissenting rhetorics. (Contains 11 notes.)

George Bernard Shaw famously quipped that "a Catholic university is a contradiction in terms." While the party-line response to Shaw is that the term "Catholic university" is instead a tautology, those who work, study, and teach at such institutions often find themselves pondering Shaw's oxymoron, asking themselves: how are they a university, and what kind of university are they? Conversely they ask, how Catholic are they? This article is an examination of how Salve Regina University's philosophical, pedagogical, curricular, and social characteristics offer religiously affiliated institutions a model for preserving both academic freedom and religious identity.

This article discusses the relationship between teachers, classroom controversy and the media. It also features the story of Ayesha, who coincidentally is one of the authors of this article. Ayesha's story is a social studies teacher's bad dream featuring one of her worst fears: (1) public criticism; and (2) controversy over something that has been taught in class. An experience like Ayesha's causes a powerful ripple effect: other teachers become concerned for their own professional safety and quickly examine their curriculum for anything that might make them vulnerable to a similar onslaught. Such self-imposed censorship is a direct threat to academic freedom through prior constraint. Educators are generally not practiced in responding to negative newspaper or television reports much less the fairly new phenomenon of talk radio. The relationship between the educational community and the media is complex and while it is not possible to address all of its many dimensions here, the authors touch on the dilemma of whether to avoid or prepare for possible controversy and on the effects adverse media attention can have on teachers. Increasingly, the debates about education are taking place on the radio, on TV, in newspapers, and on the web. The media has the potential to be either a formidable foe, carelessly or deliberately creating controversy through misrepresentation and exaggeration, or a powerful ally, providing an avenue for teachers to explain their objectives and actions, describe their achievements, and answer their critics. Because of its multidimensional qualities, the outcome of any media engagement is impossible to predict. Consequently, most teachers and administrators are slow to respond to media criticism due to the fear that any reaction may simply fan the fire. Undoubtedly, engaging in a talk radio shouting match is bound to be viewed as especially onerous. The understandable tendency in a case like Ayesha's is to develop an official statement and hope the furor will just go away. Becoming a player on the media stage is fraught with pitfalls and, in spite of the best planning, what gets reported can be incomplete, mistaken, or completely distorted. It would be naive to suggest that what we propose is easily accomplished or doesn't require a generous amount of determination and fortitude. Good planning combined with a knowledge of how the system works will go far in enabling educators to play an effective role on the media stage. (Contains 11 notes.)

Notions of crisis and chaos have become the rationale for a new discourse in which empire is the logical outcome of a world no longer secure. One level at which this is manifested is in the rejection by the USA of international agreements to which it is signatory, in the demonstrated failure of the Bretton Woods system to meet its declared objectives, and in the increasingly broad and globalized resistance to globalization. Another is in the attacks on particular forms of knowledge and academic freedom by strong neoconservative elements which seek the reconstruction of societies within a particular cultural and ideological framework. In this context, the construction of pedagogies which articulate a different vision for global order has become a contested and critical task. This article argues two things: first, that the study of culture and ethnicity is vitally important in developing pedagogies for better ways of being in the world, and second, that indigenous cultural knowledge is profoundly relevant to this endeavour. (Contains 57 notes.)

In this paper, we theorize the intersectional gendered impacts of COVID‐19 on faculty labor, with a particular focus on how institutions of higher education in the United States evaluate faculty labor amidst the COVID‐19 transition and beyond. The pandemic has disrupted faculty research, teaching, and service in differential ways, having larger impacts on women faculty, faculty of color, and caregiving faculty in ways that further reflect the intersections of these groups. Universities have had to reconsider how evaluation occurs, given the impact of these disruptions on faculty careers. Through a case study of university pandemic responses in the United States, we summarize key components of how colleges and universities shifted evaluations of faculty labor in response to COVID‐19, including suspending teaching evaluations, implementing tenure delays, and allowing for impact statements in faculty reviews. While most institutional responses recenter neoliberal principles of the ideal academic worker that is both gendered and racialized, a few universities have taken more innovative approaches to better attend to equity concerns. We conclude by suggesting a recalibration of the faculty evaluation system – one that maintains systematic faculty reviews and allows for academic freedom, but requires universities to take a more contextualized approach to evaluation in ways that center equity and inclusion for women faculty and faculty of color for the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critics of school choice claim support for educational options was an outgrowth of racist, segregationist views following the U.S. Supreme Court's Ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. In this paper, I examine these claims by analyzing the development of the public school system in the United States and the historical records from Citizens for Educational Freedom. Founded in 1959 in St. Louis, Missouri by Martin and Mae Duggan, CEF was a grassroots school choice organization. The records contain newsletters, text from speeches and national conventions, and personal correspondence, among other relevant materials. The records help us understand the motives and mind-set of the early school choice movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attacks the McCarran-Walter immigration law, which is used to deny entry into the United States to foreigners holding views government officials deem subversive. Discusses several specific cases in which the act was used to deny entry to writers, political figures, and educators. (EL)

Australian and American universities contrast instructively in the degree to which faculties participate in their governance. Although faculties have long attempted to gain authority in American universities and participate substantially today in Australian universities, the former are, and the latter are becoming, dominated by external bureaucracies. (MCG)

The article discusses methods for middle school science teachers to differentiate inquiry-based scientific investigation within a laboratory setting and allowing students to chose approaches which best reflect their learning styles. It addresses the benefits of allowing students to take ownership of their education, learner autonomy, and the degree of choice in modern U.S.

The article discusses the response of University of Florida president J. Wayne Reitz and University of South Florida (USF) president John Allen to what are identified as attacks against the privacy and academic freedom of university professors thought to be subversive, due in part to their alleged homosexuality or promotion of homosexuality, by the group the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee (FLIC) and Florida state senator Charley Johns between the mid-1950s and mid-1960s.

Commercialization and corporatization (C&C) arguably contribute to the strain in the academic roles of professors in research, teaching, and service, and in their political roles asorganic, professional, and critical intellectuals, both in the United States and greater China. Although they may manifest themselves in different shapes and forms, these global trends have been going strong and areadverselyaffecting professors’ role playing, and in essence, their academic freedom, at different degrees in different places. The paper is informed by theoretical perspectives of the sociology of higher education, and its argument is supported by both quantitative and qualitative data. Higher education is not only an important engine of the economy, but also an important driver of social and political change. How well professors can play their roles will directly influence where a society is heading; hence, the importance of this topic and what this paper may contribute to the understanding and solution of the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Focuses on the interrelationship between homeless children and science liberatory pedagogy in the United States. Perception of the society on the poor and the homeless; Effects of homelessness and poverty on the education of children; Related experiences of homeless children on their dilemma towards liberatory science education.

The decline of interest among sociologists in the works of Talcott Parsons over the last several decades has been driven in substantial respects by a belief that he was personally conservative in his political views and that his theoretical formulations were rigidly tied to a conservative view of social order. The present paper reviews Parsons' major political involvements through the course of his career from his student days through the last decade of his life. The review demonstrates that Parsons was a typical academic liberal of his time and that his liberalism was expressed especially in several major applied essays. In the 1930s, he was an early and active opponent of Nazism. During World War II, he taught professionals to administer occupied territories and nations effectively. After the war, he advocated for government support of the social sciences, citing the important contributions they had made to the war effort. In the 1950s, he wrote a famous critical analysis of the Joseph McCarthy movement in American politics. In the 1960s, he contributed supportive essays to the Civil Rights movement. Later in the decade and in the 1970s, he contributed to the protection of academic freedoms while also proposing accommodations to the demands of the student movement for more "relevant" teaching and greater participation in university governance. Throughout his career, he taught and worked closely with students of various political views and sought to protect their rights of freedom of political expression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While both the author and Norman Finkelstein were reviled by American Zionists for their opinions regarding Israel's policies in the occupied Palestinian territories when they came up for tenure, the author ultimately gained tenure at an Israeli university, while Finkelstein was denied tenure at an American one. Drawing on this experience, the author argues that American universities are being reconstructed as corporations whose major objective is to sell products. Here, faculty have become products, whereas in Israel, faculty govern their own universities and enjoy correspondingly greater academic freedom.

This paper is an anatomy of an inquisition. It examines the Cold War persecution of Edwin Berry Burgum, a university professor and literary theorist. Whilst his professional competence was consistently applauded, his academic career was abruptly destroyed. His 'fitness to teach' was determined by his political beliefs: he was a member of the American Communist Party. The paper argues that New York University, an institution that embodied liberal values, collaborated with McCarthyism. Using previously overlooked or unavailable sources, it reveals cooperation between NYU's executive officers and the FBI, HUAC and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. Though its focus on one individual, the paper illuminates larger themes of the vulnerability of academic freedom and the bureaucratic processes of political repression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]