WALT KELLY UPI EDUCATION teach the truth, however difficult and un- popular this may be to others," says the board of trustees of the University of North Carolina. "One cannot search for the truth with a closed mind or without the right to question and doubt at every step," says University of Chicago Presi- dent George Beadle, who in his time has found a lot of truth. PHILOSOPHER POGO Pressure & Conformity. Academic free- SENATOR McCARTHY The limit is honesty. dom has two historic liens on it in the The duty is to answer. U.S. Most U.S. colleges were founded by ACADEMIC FREEDOM churches, and dogma long kept a restrain- without "due process," A.A.U.P.'s "Com- ing hand on evidential inquiry. Then came mittee A" (academic freedom and tenure) What, Where, When, How? state universities, dominated by legisla- launches a finecomb investigation. Full What is truth? said jesting Pilate; and tures and Governors, who control the details are published in the A.A.U.P. would not stay for an answer. purse strings. Vulnerable to doctrinal or Bulletin. Members may then be asked to -Bacon political pressures, professors have been vote for censure, which repels not only All Freedom is academic. fired for views on everything from slavery job seekers, but also such donors as big -Pogo and secession to Darwin and free silver to philanthropic foundations. At its San The faith of the U.S. university is that sex and Cuba. Francisco meeting, A.A.U.P. swelled the free trade in ideas leads to knowledge and This outside pressure creates an inside blacklist to I5 campuses, from Pennsyl- wisdom. That this concept is flourishing pressure: academic conformity among vania's Grove City College (no hearing) was clear at the recent 49th annual meet- thousands of bystanding professors. His- to Tennessee's Fisk University (no separa- ing of the American Association of Uni- torian Russell Kirk has denounced the tion pay). "Once a school gets on our versity Professors in San Francisco. Yet academic community's "voluntary con- censured list," says A.A.U.P.'s General academic freedom remains a vexed issue formity to pragmatic smugness and the Counsel, Harvard Law Professor Clark because the ideals work out in practice as popular shibboleths of the day." In the Byse, "it really wants off." a tough position on the part of the profes- words of a Stanford professor, "No one "Commonly Accepted." To some har- sors: that colleges shall not fire professors wants the boat rocked, and freedom with ried college presidents, these limits seem who profess to be seeking truth, even responsibility usually means keeping your painfully binding. It is hard to get rid of when the professor's "truth" diametrically mouth shut." the tenured professor who coasts along, opposes everyone else's. The average U.S. professor is no Socra- or writes twaddle in letters to newspapers This sort of freedom goes well beyond tes. In the face of possible wrath or and lends himself to embarrassing causes every man's constitutional right of free ridicule, he tends to retreat to "safe" while riding on the institution's name. speech, and is too lofty to be confused, as positions. By such faculty flinching, ev- Even incompetence is difficult to prove; it commonly is by whiny teachers or eryone is cheated. Who knows what the a side effect of academic freedom is that muddled newspapers, with lesser liberties world loses, wrote John Stuart Mill, college presidents do not feel entitled to of the profession. Academic freedom can- in "the multitude of promising intellects go into classrooms to check on profes- not properly be employed to license odd- combined with timid characters, who sorial performance. ball behavior, or give special sanction to dare not follow out any bold, vigorous, Where faculty freedom flourishes, pro- a teacher's statements when made off independent train of thought lest it fessors who get fired are usually guilty of campus or outside his field. It does not should land them in something which some act SO flagrant that the president be- excuse incompetence, or exempt professors would admit of being considered irreli- lieves he can make the ouster stick. In from criticism. gious or immoral"-or subversive or even 1960, University of Illinois President Da- Yet these distinctions make the central Philistine? vid D. Henry fired Biologist Leo F. Koch concept all the stronger. Columbia's Phys- Ground Rules. To embolden the many after Koch wrote a letter to the campus icist Isidor I. Rabi defines academic free- by safeguarding the few is a basic newspaper backing premarital sex among dom as "the right to knowledge and the A.A.U.P. purpose. In its current state- students. Said Koch: "With modern con- free use thereof." It is every professor's ment of principles, made jointly with the traceptives and medical advice readily responsibility "to discover, speak and Association of American Colleges, it sets available at the nearest drugstore, or at the ground rules of academic freedom. Though master of his classroom, the teacher should avoid "controversial matter which has no relation to his subject." Though free to speak up outside the classroom, "he should remember that the public may judge his profession and his institution by his utterances." He should be accurate, respectful of other opinions, and "make every effort to indicate that he is not an institutional spokesman." In return, A.A.U.P. expects a teacher to get tenure after a probationary period of not more than seven years. He should then be fired "only for adequate cause," such as incompetence or moral turpitude, as judged by a faculty committee and the college governing board, with disputes ARTHUR SIEGEL settled in face-to-face hearings with a LARRY BURROWS-FORTUNE HISTORIAN KIRK defense counsel present. GENETICIST BEADLE The problem is conformity. When a school fires a teacher seemingly The right is to question. 72 TIME, MAY 10, 1963