The Problem of Academic Freedom

By: Matt Reynolds

Posted: 3/4/05

William F. Buckley was right about academic freedom on college campuses. He was also wrong.

Buckley, the prolific conservative writer and recently retired editor of National Review, launched himself onto the scene back in 1951 with his first (of many) books: "God and Man at Yale."

The book, a scathing indictment of the Yale education from the perspective of a recent graduate, advanced two major themes. First, that the Yale professorate-or, more specifically, Yale's social science professors-were inculcating in their impressionable young students an unhealthy skepticism toward two pillars of American life, capitalism and Christianity. Corrosive enough in and of themselves, the atheistic and socialistic attitudes being propounded deviated sharply from the predominant attitudes of Yale's alumni, to whom Buckley ascribes much authority for the shaping of the college's curriculum.

The second, and more intriguing theme, deals with the idea-as entrenched now as it was then-of "academic freedom." This was the preferred defense of professors charged by Buckley with using their lectures to undermine Christianity and free market economics-you may not agree with what I teach, but woe to the man who tells me how to run my classroom. What made "God and Man at Yale" so explosive was that its author had the temerity not only to challenge Yale's devotion to academic freedom, but to repudiate it as a foundational principle of classroom interaction.

To be specific, Buckley makes two arguments about academic freedom. First, that absolute academic freedom doesn't exist at Yale. Second, and more controversial, that absolute academic freedom shouldn't exist at Yale.

(I should warn the reader that Buckley's arguments contain far more nuance and far more profundity than I can convey in this space. While I don't think I'm doing great violence to his positions, I'm also quite certain I can't do them perfect justice. Please, read the book for yourself. It's fascinating through and through.)

As to the first of these arguments, that the Yale administration and professorate exaggerates the extent to which academic freedom insulates controversial figures and ideas, I think Buckley's case is airtight. Academic freedom might protect much that seems objectionable or out of the mainstream, but it can't protect everything.

What if, for instance, a rabidly pro-slavery academic waltzed onto campus and requested a position on the Yale faculty? Buckley says such a professor would have his butt unceremoniously kicked out onto the streets of New Haven, and presumably without any homage paid to the "sanctity of academic freedom." I agree. There will always be some charlatans whose crackpot ideas will disqualify them from employment at any intellectually serious university.

As C.S. Lewis once quipped, "a great many of those who debunk traditional values have in the background values of their own which they believe to be immune from the debunking process." Like these debunkers of traditional values, proponents of untrammeled academic freedom are typically fenced in by unacknowledged boundaries to their logic. They "have in the background" certain ideas they believe to be immune from academic freedom's protections. Pro-slavery views are a perfect example.

As to Buckley's second argument, in favor of restricting academic freedom at Yale, I will say that he makes his case forcefully and elegantly-and about as persuasively as possible, given the nature of the subject. Academic freedom was every bit the sacrament at Yale in the 1950s as it is on most college campuses today; to question its sacredness was and is to invite a certain barrage of hoots and hollers.

And yet question its sacredness Buckley did. To Hell with this notion of academic freedom, he said. What Yale needs, in a nutshell, is a healthy dose of ideological rigidity!

Well, not quite-but not quite not. Buckley contends not only that Yale professors should inculcate in their students admiration for Christianity and free markets, but that Yale shouldn't even hire anyone who refuses to abide by this policy. And no, he's not talking about brainwashing. Buckley doesn't seek to banish the entertainment of opposing views in the classroom, only to ensure that these opposing views are thoughtfully and respectfully rebuked before they can impress themselves on young and malleable minds.

I repeat-Buckley makes as compelling case as possible for a set of intellectual constraints to which most professional academics would vow unceasing hostility. But I think his case falls short. And I say this as someone who believes, like Buckley, that capitalism and Christianity are far superior to atheism and socialism in fashioning good American citizens.

Because even if Buckley's project met with success at Yale, even if the Yale faculty resolved to cheerlead for doctrines of Christianity and free market economics, the mission would eventually backfire somewhere down the line.

Remember those spurned professors-the ones sympathetic to atheism and socialism? The ones who wouldn't back down, who wouldn't compromise their beliefs in the classroom, who wouldn't toe the Yale party line? I'm betting they'd dust themselves off, regroup, and start infiltrating schools more inclined toward intellectual permissiveness. Get enough of these types congregated in one place, and pretty soon they'd be purging any remaining Christians and free market enthusiasts from the relevant department rolls.

End result? The conservatives would have their schools. And the liberals would have theirs. No interaction. No dialogue. No exchange of ideas. Only intellectual stagnation. Only bitter ideological warfare, as factories of propaganda vie for the next generation of minds to mold.

Only bad news for America's colleges and universities, and for its future citizens.

But the debate over academic freedom isn't about a bombshell of a book penned by a conservative icon named William F. Buckley many moons ago. Heck, the debate over academic freedom isn't even academic. It has very real implications for the very real world of university politics.

And this will come as a shock to those readers accustomed to my strong and stubborn stances, but on this issue, I'm torn.

Untrammeled academic freedom undeniably has its drawbacks. For proof, look westward, out toward the University of Colorado at Boulder, where Ward Churchill, tenured professor of Ethnic Studies, amazingly still receives compensation for his services. Churchill, you will recall, slandered victims of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Towers by likening them to Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi goon. He loathes America. Loathes its foreign policy. Loathes everything about it.

And he's enlisting the soldiers of "academic freedom" in his defense. But as I wrote two weeks ago, "our commitment to free speech as a society hardly translates into umbrella protection for charlatans who do violence to American ideals at the American taxpayers expense."

I stand by this statement. Churchill, of course, has every right under the First Amendment to spew his filth. Whether he has every right to earn a salary from the University of Colorado for spewing his filth in one of its classrooms is another matter altogether. Words, freely spoken, can still have consequences, and Churchill shouldn't be allowed to duck behind the shield of academic freedom and escape the consequences his words have wrought.

Allan Bloom, in his masterpiece "The Closing of the American Mind," wonders pessimistically whether American universities have ceased envisioning what it is an educated person should know, and constructing their curricula accordingly. But to envision what an educated person should know is also to envision what he need not know, and to discriminate between the two. Academic freedom suffers. Quite rightly.

Matthew Arnold once famously proclaimed liberal education a quest "to know the best which has been thought and said in the world." If American universities are going to acquaint their students with "the best which has been thought and said in the world," then they'll have to discriminate against professors who'd rather teach basket weaving than Plato and Aristotle. Again, academic freedom suffers. Again, quite rightly.

Carried to the extreme, academic freedom is clearly unsustainable. And yet, I don't think we can abandon the idea outright, if only because we need it to curb some of the politically correct excesses tainting modern campus life.

Meet Scott O'Connell, an Army veteran who went to pursue a graduate degree in education at Le Moyne College, a Jesuit school in Syracuse, NY.

O'Connell's grades were stellar, and his professors thought him a delight to have in class. So what went wrong? His sin was to advocate, in a term paper, the occasional use of corporal punishment in the schools. Huge no-no, said the PC police.

His punishment? Expulsion from Le Moyne. In other words, more than just a spanking.

Meet Larry Summers, outspoken president of Harvard University. Actually, you've probably already met, what with his face on every television screen and his words splashed across every newspaper. Summers, in a private address to the National Bureau of Economic Research, speculated as to whether innate gender differences might explain why men tend to outperform women in the hard sciences. The feminists, who believe with a religious fervor that anything guys can do gals can do better, exploded with rage. They called for his head on a platter-even for the mere suggestion, unendorsed, that sex differences sometimes matter more than sex discrimination.

His punishment? Having to retract the offending statements. Having to grovel before the feet of those unwilling to consider them seriously. Having to endure scorn heaped upon disgrace. And, if the feminists get their way, having to polish up his resume while waiting in the unemployment line.

Is Summers right? I don't know. But to rule out of bounds a discussion of innate biological differences between men and women, all because the feminists might have their utopian dreams dashed? Beyond ludicrous.

College campuses need some measure of academic freedom to stave off the vultures of political correctness, now preying on the carcasses of O'Connell, Summers, and others who swim against the prevailing ideological currents. But without reasonable boundaries, academic freedom undermines the very purpose of the academy-to instill in American youth a respect not for any old quackery, but for "the best which has been thought and said in the world."