Purdue's idea of academic freedom

Purdue's idea of academic freedom

November 24, 2009

IF YOU were to wander around campus asking students at Purdue about the distinguished professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois in Chicago who was invited to speak at Purdue, or about the Cummings-Perrucci Annual Lecture on Class, Race and Gender Inequality's inaugural presentation on the challenges facing urban schools, you would probably receive little more than a blank stare in almost every case.

If, on the other hand, you were to ask about the university inviting a "domestic terrorist" or an "ex-radical" onto its campus, virtually every student would immediately identify William Ayers as the dangerous terrorist in question.

The university is believed to be a vibrant center of free thought and democratic ideals. Today's administrators supposedly recognize the value of academic freedom, and do their best to ensure that the faculty and students are free to debate and exchange ideas. Meanwhile, professional journalists trained by these same universities are ostensibly given the freedom to make sure that the debates and ideas are presented accurately to the entire community, and the powerful media corporations who own the papers claim to leave all editorial decisions up to the newsroom.

If we go beyond the rhetoric, however, we find that reality doesn't always conform to this ideal.

On the one hand, faculty certainly have a bit more autonomy than they did just over 80 years ago, when Upton Sinclair published a damning critique of the nation's university administrators in the aptly titled novel The Goose-step. On the other hand, the advances won in the name of academic freedom continue to be contested, and the ongoing corporatization of the academy continues to undermine the liberal arts and commodify the sciences.

http://socialistworker.org/2009/11/24/academic-freedom-at-purdue