The UNC Board of Governors is moving forward on adopting a system-wide definition of academic freedom.
According to System officials the proposal "fills out a gap" in UNC BOG policies, which have long mentioned academic freedom without defining it.
But some faculty members say the "lengthy and vague" policy is a threat to academic freedom in itself and fear it can be used to retaliate against professors who teach unpopular subjects.
The UNC System's proposal defines academic freedom as a principle that "protects the rights of all faculty to engage in teaching, research/creative activities service, and scholarly inquiry without undue influence" and "ensures that faculty can freely pursue knowledge; express, discuss and debate ideas; and contribute to knowledge and understanding related to their areas of expertise."
That definition comes with several "parameters" ranging from requiring professors to keep lessons involving controversial ideas related to their subject matter, to ensuring "faculty activities" support their university's mission and follow accreditation standards.
The proposal also carves out multiple "academic freedom protections" for students. This includes allowing students to take "reasoned exception" to theories their professors present as well as prohibiting faculty members from evaluating students based on their beliefs.
Wade Maki, the UNC System Faculty Assembly Chair, spoke up in support of the academic freedom proposal during a UNC Board of Governors meeting Wednesday.
"We are very pleased, the Faculty Assembly, to have had the opportunities to give you what we have before us today," Maki said at the meeting. "I think it's a good balance of what the responsibilities we have are and what the opportunities are. Academic freedom is critical to us using our expertise to do the teaching and research that faculty are supposed to do."
Belle Boggs is the president of the North Carolina American Association of University Professors. She said Faculty Senates, including her own, endorsed the Faculty Assembly's definition of academic freedom. The proposal the UNC System put forth, however, diverges from that with its added parameters.
"Many new lines of text were somehow, between October and the end of December, added in to this definition of academic freedom," Boggs said in an interview with WUNC. "Faculty are finding out about this now in a very rushed timeline. And this is a big deal because academic freedom is the number one work condition that we require to do our jobs."
Boggs said she views the policy change as a response to "culture war politics" and that it contains language that is too vague and subjective.
"What happens when someone says, 'well, you're a writing teacher; you can't also teach about history," Boggs said. "You're an English professor; you can't also teach about science?"
"Reasoned exception – what does that mean?" Boggs said. "How much is one student who takes 'reasoned exception' for example to climate change able to derail a class that centers on climate change?"
In other states, similar parameters have been used against professors.
In Texas, an English professor was fired for including a gender identity lesson in her children's literature course. The University of Oklahoma removed a graduate student from teaching after she gave a student a zero for mainly citing religious beliefs on a psychology paper.
Some faculty believe similar situations wouldn't be much of a leap in North Carolina, which has been following in other Southern state's footsteps in recent years with decisions from DEI to syllabi.
Boggs, the NC AAUP President, is also concerned the policy opens the door to "unnecessary surveillance" and will in turn lead to professors self-censoring.
"There are so many examples of people who can teach the 'safe class' that has not been objected to or that is not interdisciplinary or is not risky – and try to keep their heads down and keep their jobs," Boggs said. "That is not how you want faculty members conducting research or planning classes in world-class universities."
"Academic freedom is not absolute – it doesn't mean you can say whatever you feel like saying in a classroom or that you can act in a way that's unethical," Boggs continued. "Putting all of these so-called parameters into place really makes it possible for people in the future or in the present to manipulate what is taught in classrooms. And basically, that's what academic freedom is – it's the ability to teach and research without undue outside influence."
A UNC BOG committee unanimously approved the System’s academic freedom definition Wednesday. The policy won’t be official unless the full UNC Board of Governors passes it next month.
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