Academic Freedom Alive and Well in Pennsylvania

by Tula Connell, Nov 21, 2006

Good news for everyone who values academic freedom: Pennsylvania just became the 21st state to reject government intervention in higher education’s teaching and learning process.

The Pennsylvania House Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education today rejected legislation to restrict what the state’s higher education faculty can teach and what their students can learn in the classroom.

Over the past year, the Pennsylvania legislature held four public hearings to determine if academic freedom was being compromised—an assertion made by David Horowitz, who has made a recent career out of trying to kill free speech on college campuses. Horowitz has pushed for introduction of the seriously misnamed Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) in 24 states, legislation limiting the speech of college and university professors.

Horowitz recently authored the screed, The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America, which targets university instructors for such actions as that of a female professor who injected “a women-centered perspective” into her courses on feminism.

Free Exchange analyzes Horowitz’s diatribe in “Facts Count,” a report that finds the “tone and format of The Professors strongly evokes a blacklist.”

According to AFT, a nationwide teachers’ union, William Cutler, president of the Temple Association of University Professors in Pennsylvania, warned early on that if passed, ABOR would “open the door to the kind of political presence in higher education” not seen in Pennsylvania in 50 years.

Cutler wrote:

The intellectual climate on college and university campuses will be far less open if students and professors feel that their work is being monitored by those who answer to a particular group or set of constituents.

The legislative committee’s findings follow testimony from 77 witnesses, including 28 students, 29 faculty members and eight administrators. The testimony overwhelmingly supported the committee’s ultimate finding—and nullified Horowitz’s efforts to hijack the system.

According to Free Exchange on Campus, which opposes ABORs, Pennsylvania lawmakers determined that

institutions should continue to do what they are doing. Now that is a recommendation that is firmly based in the hearings. It is also based on a more accurate understanding of the connection between academic freedom policies and grievance procedures…. In the Findings section, they shifted the language to talk about both academic freedom policies and grievance procedures and eliminated the confusing discussion of “student specific academic freedom policies.”  While Horowitz might be confused about these concepts, it is clear that the Committee understands them. Well done to all.

Check out Free Exchange’s Analysis of the Pennsylvania Select Committee on Academic Freedom Hearings.

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