Today, a half century after the 1954House Un-American Activities Commit-tee held congressional hearings on com-munists in American universities, facul-ty members are witnessing once again arising tide of anti-intellectualism andthreats to academic freedom.1 They areincreasingly apprehensive about theinfluence of external politics on univer-sity decision making. The attacks onprofessors like Joseph Massad, ThomasButler, Rashid Khalidi, Ward Churchill,and Edward Said, coupled with otheractions taken by the federal governmentin the name of national security, suggestthat we may well be headed for anotherera of intolerance and repression.

The United States paid a heavy pricewhen the leaders of its research universi-ties failed in the 1950s to defend the lead-er of the Manhattan Project J. RobertOppenheimer; the double Nobel Prizechemist Linus Pauling; and the China

expert Owen Lattimore. But a wave ofrepression in American universitiestoday is apt to have even more dramaticconsequences for the nation than therepression of the Cold War.

Compared to today, universities dur-ing the McCarthy period were relativelysmall institutions that were not muchdependent on government contracts andgrants. In the early 1950s, Columbia Uni-versity’s annual budget was substantiallyless than $50 million. Its annual budgetis now roughly $2.4 billion, and morethan a quarter of this comes from thefederal government, leaving researchuniversities like it ever more vulnerableto political manipulation and control.

Universities today are also moredeeply embedded in the broader societythan ever before. They are linked toindustry, business, and government inmultiple ways. Their links to the largersociety inevitably lead to public criticismof the university when faculty membersor students express ideas or behave inways that some in the public ½nd repug-nant.

Can the leaders and the tenured facul-ty of our great research universities riseto the challenge of rebutting such criti-cism? Can we do better at defending ac-ademic freedom than our predecessorsdid in the 1950s?

Dædalus Spring 2005 1

Comment by Jonathan R. Cole

Academic freedom under ½re

Jonathan R. Cole, a Fellow of the AmericanAcademy since 1992, is the John Mitchell MasonProfessor of the University at Columbia Universi-ty, where he was provost and dean of facultiesfrom 1989–2003. He has published extensivelyon social aspects of science, on women in science,on the peer review system, on the social organiza-tion and reward systems of science, on scienti½cand technological literacy, and, more recently, ontopics in higher education. He is currently writinga book on the critical importance of the Americanresearch university for the welfare of Americansociety.

© 2005 by Jonathan R. Cole

1 Many colleagues have provided useful com-ments on earlier drafts of this essay. I receivedparticularly helpful comments from Akeel Bil-grami, David Cohen, Joanna L. Cole, SusannaCole, Tom Goldstein, Eric Foner, James Miller,Richard Shweder, and Geoffrey Stone.

To do so, we must convince the publicthat a failure to defend dissenting voiceson the campus places at risk the greatestengine for the creation of new ideas andscienti½c innovation the world has everknown. We must explain that one cannever know the true worth of an ideaunless one is free to examine it. We mustexplain that such freedom of inquiry is akey to innovation and progress over thelong term in the sciences as well as thehumanities. Above all, we must showthat a threat to academic freedom posesa threat as well to the welfare and pros-perity of the nation.

The preeminence of American univer-sities is an established fact. It was recent-ly reaf½rmed in a 2004 study conductedin China at Shanghai Jiao Tong Universi-ty that evaluated ½ve hundred of theworld’s universities. The United Stateshas 80 percent of the world’s twentymost distinguished research universitiesand about 70 percent of the top ½fty.We lead the world in the production ofnew knowledge and its transmission toundergraduate, doctoral, and postdoc-toral students. Since the 1930s, the Unit-ed States has dominated the receipt ofNobel Prizes, capturing roughly 60 per-cent of these awards.

Our universities are the envy of theworld, in part because the systems ofhigher education in many other coun-tries–China is a good example–do notallow their faculty and students the ex-tensive freedom of inquiry that is thehallmark of the American system. As aconsequence, our universities attractstudents from all over the world whoeither remain in this country as highlyskilled members of our society or returnhome to become leaders in their owncountries and ambassadors for the Unit-ed States. The advanced graduates of theAmerican research university populate

the world’s great industrial laboratories,its high-tech incubator companies, andits leading professions. Many of theemerging industries on which the nationdepends to create new jobs and maintainits leading role in the world economygrow out of discoveries made at theAmerican research university.2 Thelaser, the mri, the algorithm for Googlesearches, the Global Positioning System,the fundamental discoveries leading tobiotechnology, the emerging uses ofnanoscience, the methods of surveyingpublic opinion, even Viagra–all thesediscoveries and thousands of other in-ventions and medical miracles were cre-ated by scholars working in the Ameri-can research university.

Unfortunately, most leaders of highereducation have done a poor job of edu-cating the public about the essential val-ues of the American research university.They have also failed to make the casefor the research university as the incuba-tor of new ideas and discoveries. As aconsequence, when a professor comesunder attack for the content of his or herideas, the public has little understandingof why the leader of a research universi-ty, if he or she is to uphold the core prin-ciple of academic freedom, must come tothe professor’s defense.

Attacks on academics follow a clearpattern: A professor is singled out forcriticism. This is followed by media cov-erage that carries the allegations to larg-er audiences. The coverage is often cur-sory and sometimes distorted. Some cit-izens conclude that the university har-

2 Dædalus Spring 2005

Comment byJonathan R.Cole

2 The role of industry is, of course, critical aswell, but most of the great industrial laborato-ries are highly dependent on these same re-search universities for PhDs who join thesecompanies. So universities have both a directand an indirect influence on the production ofinnovation.

bors extremists who subvert our nation-al ideals. Pressed by irate constituents,political leaders and alumni demandthat the university sanction or ½re theprofessor. This is an all-too-familiarstory in our nation’s history.

The recent attack on Professor JosephMassad of Columbia University offersa perfect example of how this processunfolds. The drama began with a groupcalled the David Project, which waslaunched in 2002 “in response to thegrowing ideological assault on Israel.”The Project subsequently produced aone-sided twenty-½ve-minute ½lm,“Columbia Unbecoming,” in whichformer students accused Professor Mas-sad of inappropriate behavior in his elec-tive course, “Palestinian and Israeli Poli-tics and Societies.” One former studentalleged on camera that Massad used“racial stereotypes” and “intimidationtactics . . . in order to push a distinct ideo-logical line on the curriculum”; anotherasserted that Massad had crossed theline “between vigorous debate and dis-cussion, and hate.”3

The David Project distributed this ½lmto the media, and one-sided stories soonbegan to appear in conservative publica-tions such as The New York Sun. This trig-gered follow-up stories in The New YorkTimes, The Chronicle of Higher Education,and other local, national, and interna-tional news outlets. One, appearing inthe November 21, 2004, Sunday editionof The New York Daily News, bore theheadline “HATE 101.”

Not every story about Massad wasthis crude. A correspondent for The Jew-ish Week, for example, interviewed anIsraeli student at Columbia who stronglydefended Massad. “The class was an in-credible experience,” this student re-

ported. “It wasn’t fun to be the onlyIsraeli in class, but I never felt intimidat-ed. Passionate, emotional, but not intim-idated.”

Unfortunately, these nuanced accountscould not compete with strident head-lines about hate. At one point, Congress-man Anthony D. Weiner, a New YorkDemocrat, asked Columbia presidentLee Bollinger to ½re the untenured Pro-fessor Massad as a way of demonstratingColumbia’s commitment to tolerance.The irony was seemingly lost on Mr.Weiner, who had the audacity to write,“By publicly rebuking anti-Semiticevents on campus and terminating Pro-fessor Massad, Columbia would make abrave statement in support of toleranceand academic freedom.”

Weiner’s Orwellian ploy–of callingintolerance “tolerance”–must be seenin a broader context. There is a growingeffort to pressure universities to monitorclassroom discussion, create speechcodes, and, more generally, enable dis-gruntled students to savage professorswho express ideas they ½nd disagree-able. There is an effort to transmogrifyspeech that some people ½nd offensiveinto a type of action that is punishable.

There is of course no place in theAmerican research university classroomfor physical intimidation, physical as-sault, or violations of the personal spaceof students. There is no place for facultymembers to use their positions of au-thority to coerce and cow students intoconforming to their own point of view.No university will protect a professor’suse of a string of epithets directed to-ward a particular student in a gratuitousmanner that is unrelated to the sub-stance of the course. There are work-place rules in place at universities thatgovern and control such forms of behav-ior. And there must be, by law, mecha-

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Academicfreedomunder ½re

3 The ½lm has been shown in at least four or½ve different versions; its content is continual-ly changing.

nisms for students or others at the uni-versity to lodge complaints against pro-fessors who violate these rules. Thisbasic commitment to civility and pro-fessional responsibility is part of thecode of conduct at Columbia and atevery other major American researchuniversity.4

But the codes that place limits on con-duct must never be directed at the con-tent of ideas–however offensive theymay be to students, faculty, alumni,benefactors, or politicians.

Critics of the university, such as thoseaf½liated with the David Project, tend toblur the distinction between speech andaction. They accuse professors of inap-propriate action and intimidation whenthey are actually trying to attack the con-tent of their ideas. They also tend to ex-propriate key terms in the liberal lexi-con, as if they were the only true cham-pions of freedom and diversity on col-lege campuses.

Consider Students for Academic Free-dom (saf), an organization launchedby veteran conservative activists. Thegroup’s very name implies a commit-ment to a core liberal value, just as thegroup’s tactics promise to empoweraggrieved students. Currently, the safis encouraging students nationwide toorganize and lobby university leaders,alumni, and members of state legisla-tures to adopt a “student bill of rights.”

But saf’s language and tactics are mis-leading. Under the banner of seekingbalance and diversity in the classroom,

these students are trying to limit discus-sion of ideas with which they disagree.They want students to become judges, ifnot ½nal arbiters, of faculty competence.They have supported the campaignagainst Massad at Columbia, and haveurged students to report “unfair grading,one-sided lectures, and stacked readinglists” as an abuse of student rights.

While I was provost at Columbia therewere many efforts by outside groups toinfluence university policy and to silencespeci½c members of the faculty. Repeat-ed efforts were made to defame and dis-credit the renowned literary critic andPalestinian advocate Edward Said. Ex-ternal groups tried, but failed, to haveColumbia deny an appointment to aneminent Middle East historian, RashidKhalidi. Sixty-two members of Congresswrote to Columbia calling on us to ½reNicholas de Genova, a professor of an-thropology, after he made inflammatoryremarks at an antiwar teach-in prior tothe most recent Iraq War–even thoughhis remarks were immediately criticizedat the same teach-in by other Columbiafaculty members.

Even when nobody loses his or her job,these assaults take a toll. As ProfessorMassad explains on his website, “Withthis campaign against me going into itsfourth year, I chose under the duress ofcoercion and intimidation not to teachmy course [‘Palestinian and Israeli Poli-tics and Societies’] this year.”

Most of the recent attacks on univer-sity professors have been leveled againstsocial scientists and humanists. Manycritics of the university seem to believethat sanctioning one group of professorswill have no effect on those in other dis-ciplines. This is dangerously naive, bothin principle and in practice.

The stakes are high. The destruction ofuniversity systems has historically beencaused by the imposition of external

4 Dædalus Spring 2005

Comment byJonathan R.Cole

4 “Academic freedom implies that all of½cersof instruction are entitled to freedom in theclassroom in discussing their subjects: that theyare entitled to freedom in research and in thepublication of its results; and that they may notbe penalized by the University for expression ofopinion or associations in their private civic ca-pacity; but they should bear in mind the specialobligations arising from their position in the aca-demic community [italics added].” From The Fac-ulty Handbook, Columbia University, 2000, 184.

political ideology on the conduct ofscholarly and scienti½c research. De-fense of faculty members in the humani-ties and social sciences from externalpolitical pressure protects all membersof the university community.

History suggests that the natural sci-ences, too, can be infected by politicalpressures to conform to ideological be-liefs. German universities still have notrecovered from the catastrophe of 1933when Hitler began to dismantle Germanscience and technology by purging thoseresearchers who did ‘Jewish science.’Japanese universities were damagedimmeasurably in the 1930s by the purg-ing of dissident intellectuals. Soviet biol-ogy never fully recovered from the im-position of Lysenkoism into the biologi-cal sciences.

Today, political pressure to include‘creationism’ and theories of ‘intelligentdesign’ as alternatives to Darwinian evo-lution in the secondary school sciencecurriculum has already led to a purgingof Darwin’s theory from the science cur-riculum in at least thirteen states. TheNational Academies of Sciences and theUnion of Concerned Scientists have cat-aloged many examples of Bush adminis-tration interference with research andeducation. Consider just a few examples:Foreign students and scholars from ‘sus-pect’ nations are harassed and even de-nied entry into the United States with-out a scintilla of evidence that they aresecurity risks. American professors areprevented from working with gifted for-eign scientists and students. Open schol-arly communication is impeded by poli-cies designed to isolate nations support-ing terrorism; library and computer rec-ords are searched; political litmus testsare used by the Bush administration todecide who will serve on scienti½c advi-sory committees; and scienti½c reportswhose content is inconsistent with theBush administration’s ideology have

been altered. Even though the NationalInstitutes of Health supported the re-search, some members of Congress al-most succeeded in rescinding fundingfor projects on hiv/aids. Another re-cent bill, House Resolution 3077, almostsucceeded in mandating direct govern-ment oversight of university ‘area stud-ies’ programs (the bill passed the Housebut died in the Senate).

These attacks should be related to stillother threats to scienti½c inquiry. Theusa patriot Act and the BioterrorismDefense Act have, for example, led to thecriminal prosecution of Dr. Thomas But-ler, one of the nation’s leading expertson plague bacteria. Butler faced a ½fteen-count indictment for violating the Patri-ot Act’s provision requiring reporting onthe use and transport of speci½c biologi-cal agents and toxins that in principlecould be used by bioterrorists. Butlerwas acquitted of all charges related tothe Patriot Act, except for a minor one–his failure to obtain a transport permitfor moving the bacteria from Tanzaniato his Texas laboratory, as he had donefor the past twenty years. However,while investigating Butler’s work withplague bacteria, the fbi combed overeverything in his lab at Texas Tech Uni-versity, reviewed all of his accounts, andadded on ½fty-four counts of tax eva-sion, theft, and fraud unrelated to thePatriot Act. His conviction was based onthe add-on counts. The upshot of all ofthis was that he lost his medical license,was ½red from his job, and now, if heloses his appeal, faces up to nine yearsin jail.

In another case, Attorney GeneralJohn Ashcroft publicly targeted Dr.Steven J. Hat½ll of Louisiana State Uni-versity as “a person of interest” in theanthrax scare that followed 9/11. Al-though Hat½ll has never been chargedwith any crime, lsu ½red him because ofthe accusation and intervention of the

Dædalus Spring 2005 5

Academicfreedomunder ½re

Justice Department. Other faculty mem-bers at other institutions have sufferedthrough unannounced and intimidatingvisits from the fbi to their homes orcampus of½ces.

These crude efforts to enforce thePatriot Act have already had some seri-ous consequences. Robert C. Richard-son, whose work on liquid heliumearned him a Nobel Prize in Physics,has described the atrophy of bioterror-ism research at Cornell:

The Patriot Act, which was passed after9/11, has a section in it to control who canwork on “select agents,” pathogens thatmight be developed as bioweapons. AtCornell [before 9/11], we had somethinglike 76 faculty members who had projectson lethal pathogens and something like38 working speci½cally on select agents.There were stringent regulations for con-trol of the pathogens–certain categoriesof foreign nationals who were not allowedto handle them, be in a room with them oreven be aware of research results. So whatis the situation now? We went from 38people who could work on select agents to2. We’ve got a lot less people working oninterventions to vaccinate against small-pox, West Nile virus, anthrax and any of30 other scourges.5

Is our national security enhancedwhen the government turns our bestimmunology and biodefense laborato-ries into ghost towns?

In an atmosphere of growing fear andintimidation, we would be wise not todismiss these attacks on the Americanresearch university as mere aberrations.Indeed, universities are fragile institu-tions, and they have historically caved in

to external political pressure at keymoments–as they did during the RedScares that followed the two worldwars.6

Periodically, often during times of na-tional fear, political leaders and ideo-logues on the Right and the Left havesilenced dissent and pressured universi-ties to abandon their most fundamentalvalues of free and open inquiry. Mostuniversity leaders and faculty membersfell easily into line during the First RedScare of 1919–1921 and during the reignof Joseph McCarthy. As historians EllenSchrecker and Sigmund Diamond haveshown, presidents and trustees of re-search universities often publicly es-poused civil liberties, academic free-dom, and free inquiry while privatelycollaborating with the fbi to purge fac-ulty members accused of holding sedi-tious political views.7

Some university leaders underestimat-ed the gravity of the threat and bowedto wealthy benefactors who threatenedto withdraw their support. Others dis-missed professors out of fear of bad pub-licity. Still others supported these purgesbecause they believed in them. For ex-ample, Cornell president E. E. Day main-tained that “a man who belongs to theCommunist Party and who follows theparty line is thereby disquali½ed fromparticipating in a free, honest inquiryafter truth, and from belonging on a uni-versity faculty devoted to the search for

6 Dædalus Spring 2005

Comment byJonathan R.Cole

5 Quoted in Claudia Dreifus, “The Chilling ofAmerican Science: A Conversation with RobertC. Richardson,” The New York Times, July 6,2004, D2.

6 For an exceptionally ½ne discussion of thesefailures, see Geoffrey Stone, Perilous Times: FreeSpeech in Wartime From the Sedition Act of 1798 tothe War on Terrorism (New York: W. W. Norton,2004).

7 Reviewing the now available archival mate-rial at Harvard University, Robert N. Bellahhas con½rmed the accounts of Diamond andSchrecker. Bellah reports his ½ndings in “Mc-Carthyism at Harvard,” Letter to The New YorkReview of Books, February 10, 2005, 42–43.

truth.” Yale president Charles Seymourproclaimed, “There will be no witchhunts at Yale because there will be nowitches. We do not intend to hire Com-munists.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins, chancellorof the University of Chicago, was one ofthe few great heroes during those per-ilous times. In 1949, testifying before astate commission investigating commu-nists on campus, he boldly argued fortolerance:

The danger to our institutions is not fromthe tiny minority who do not believe inthem. It is from those who would mistak-enly repress the free spirit upon whichthose institutions are built. . . . The policyof repression of ideas cannot work andhas never worked. The alternative is thelong, dif½cult road of education.

On another occasion, Hutchins ob-served that the problem with witch-hunts was “not how many professorswould be ½red for their beliefs, but howmany think they might be. The entireteaching profession is intimidated.”

Hutchins’s boss, Laird Bell, chairmanof the University of Chicago’s Board ofTrustees, was equally outspoken: “To begreat,” he declared,

a university must adhere to principle. Itcannot shift with the winds of passingpublic opinion. . . . It must rely for its sup-port upon a relatively small number ofpeople who understand the importantcontributions it makes to the welfare ofthe community and the improvement ofmankind: upon those who understandthat academic freedom is important notbecause of its bene½ts to professors butbecause of its bene½ts to all of us.

What, then, are the de½ning princi-ples that guide the work of the universi-ty? As scholars and scientists, we place a

premium on openness, rigor, fairness,originality, and skepticism. We are partof an international community of schol-ars and scientists whose ideas transcendinternational borders. We collaborateand exchange ideas with Iraqis, Rus-sians, Iranians, Chinese, and Israeliswithout considering politics or national-ity. We hold that members of our com-munity must always be free to dissent–to pursue and express new and even rad-ical ideas in an environment of unfet-tered freedom.

By the same token, proponents of newideas and their critics must be free todisagree. And this is especially true inthe classroom, in which faculty and stu-dents must be free to explore and devel-op their ideas in robust and uninhibiteddebate. By encouraging independentthinking, no matter how preposterous oroutrageous, the university promotestrust, creativity, collaboration, and inno-vation.

The goal is to establish an environ-ment in which it is possible for the in-quisitive mind to flourish. In contrast toprivate enterprise, the university placesthe welfare of the community aboveindividual gain. The coin of the academ-ic realm is the recognition that profes-sors and students receive based on thequality of their contributions to the cre-ation, transmission, and understandingof knowledge. The university is a meri-tocracy. Ideally, quality of mind ex-pressed through teaching, research, andlearning is rewarded without regard torace, religion, nationality, or gender.

This does not mean, of course, thatreal merit is always rewarded: like anycomplex institution, the modern univer-sity does not always function as it ismeant to. But it is simply ridiculous toperpetuate the myth that research uni-versities are rogue institutions that oper-ate in an uncontrolled environment.

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Academicfreedomunder ½re

Most of them are probably more ac-countable for their products and fortheir ½nancial transactions than mostlarge American corporations.8

Universities are evaluating themselvesfrom dawn to dusk. State and regionalaccrediting agencies are continually re-viewing the academic quality of univer-sity programs and faculties. Federalfunding agencies conduct extensive peerreviews of grant applications that evalu-ate the quality of applicants’ prior work,the quality of the proposals submitted,and the potential value of the work whencompleted; they use site visits to reviewelaborate proposals before funding largecenters or university institutes. Ob-sessed with knowledge about their repu-tation and quality, research universitiesuse ad hoc or standing committees ofexperts to evaluate the quality of the cur-riculum, the quality of the faculty, andthe quality of departments and schools.The scienti½c and scholarly papers andmonographs of faculty members arepeer reviewed before they are acceptedfor publication and are assessed in termsof the potential impact of this work onthe ½eld. The results of course evalua-tions by undergraduate and graduatestudents are part of the ‘teaching portfo-lios’ that are used in deciding on the pro-motion and tenure of junior facultymembers. Finally, there is accountability

for personal conduct: students and col-leagues can ½le grievances of discrimina-tion with deans, department chairs,ombuds of½cers, the university senate,and the eeoc, among other outlets forclaims of inappropriate behavior.

The governing role played by peersmakes universities different from mostother American institutions. The re-search university was founded on theidea that professors should regulatetheir own affairs. This aspiration hasnever been fully realized. But it is plainlyevident in the tradition that those whooversee the core academic work of theuniversity–the president, the provost,the deans, and the department chairs–are themselves distinguished scholarsand teachers who are respected mem-bers of the faculty. Moreover, universityleaders govern by persuasive and dele-gated authority, not by the exercise ofpower.

Another essential feature of the Amer-ican research university is that no onespeaks ‘for’ the university–not even itsof½cial leaders. While the president andthe provost and the board of trusteeshave the responsibility and the authorityto formulate and carry out universitypolicies, the essence of a university liesin its multiplicity of voices: those of itsfaculty, its students, its researchers, itsstaff. Presidents and provosts are oftenasked questions of the following kind:“What is the university’s position on thewritings, or remarks, or actions of Pro-fessor X?”

In fact, there is no ‘university position’on such matters. The university does notdecide which ideas are good and bad,which are right and wrong. That is up forconstant debate, deliberation, and dis-course among the faculty and students.For the university to take such positionswould stifle academic freedom andalienate those whose views differ fromthose of the institution’s leaders. The

8 Dædalus Spring 2005

Comment byJonathan R.Cole

8 I’m not focusing here on ½nancial accounta-bility. In fact, universities have many ways ofreviewing and accounting for their ½nancialtransactions. Fund accounting at universitiesallows auditors to review every research grantor contract in minute detail. Full-time federalauditors are ½xtures at universities. Major ac-counting ½rms audit the books of the universi-ties on an annual basis. Bonds floated by uni-versities to ½nance construction projects arebrought to market only after bond-rating agen-cies evaluate the credit worthiness of the uni-versity and rate the bonds. The ratings dependalmost as much on qualitative factors of thequality of university schools and departmentsas on ½nancial ratios and other indicators.

responsibility of these leaders is not todecide whose ideas are best, but to cre-ate an environment in which all ideasmay be explored and tested.

First and foremost, the American re-search university is designed to be unset-tling. Was this not Socrates’ purpose aswell? Because it is committed to the cre-ation of new knowledge and the intellec-tual growth of its students, the universi-ty must nurture the expression of noveland sometimes startling ideas and opin-ions. Lionel Trilling, the preeminent lit-erary critic, wrote in Beyond Cultureabout the contentious nature of the lit-erature sometimes taught at the univer-sity:

Any historian of literature of the modernage will take virtually for granted the ad-versary intention, the actual subversiveintention, that characterizes modern writ-ing–he will perceive its clear purposeof detaching the reader from habits ofthought and feeling that the larger cultureimposes, of giving him a ground and avantage point from which to judge andcondemn, and perhaps revise, the culturethat has produced him.

Whether in 1965, when this was pub-lished and Trilling taught at Columbia,or today, the mission of the Americanresearch university is to encourage facul-ty and students to challenge prevailingvalues, policies, beliefs, and institutions.That is why the university will alwayshave–and must welcome–dissentingvoices and radical critics.

Researchers at America’s universitiesdo not generally investigate questionsfor which there are ‘right’ or ready an-swers–answers at the back of a book.The goal of academic discourse is notmerely to convey information, but toprovoke, to stimulate ideas, and to teachstudents to think and provide them withthe intellectual and analytical tools that

will enable them to think well. Greatteachers challenge their students’ andcolleagues’ biases and presuppositions.They present unsettling ideas and dareothers to rebut them and to defend theirown beliefs in a coherent and principledmanner. The American research univer-sity pushes and pulls at the walls of or-thodoxy and rejects politically correctthinking. In this process, students andprofessors may sometimes feel intimi-dated, overwhelmed, and confused. Butit is by working through this processthat they learn to think better and moreclearly for themselves.

Unsettling by nature, the universityculture is also highly conservative. Itdemands evidence before acceptingnovel challenges to existing theoriesand methods. The university ought to beviewed in terms of a fundamental inter-dependence between the liberality of itsintellectual life and the conservatism ofits methodological demands. Becausethe university encourages discussion ofeven the most radical ideas, it must setits standards at a high level. We permitalmost any idea to be put forward–butonly because we demand arguments andevidence to back up the ideas we debateand because we set the bar of proof atsuch a high level.

These two components–tolerance forunsettling ideas and insistence on rigor-ous skepticism about all ideas–createan essential tension at the heart of theAmerican research university. It will notthrive without both components operat-ing effectively and simultaneously.

Here we must acknowledge an areawhere the university today faces a realand dif½cult problem with the mecha-nisms it uses to evaluate the work of itsscholars. For the threats to free inquirydo not come only from government poli-cies, from local or national politicians,from external lobbying groups, or from

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Academicfreedomunder ½re

lazy journalism. Some of the most subtlethreats come from within the academyitself.

For example, an unspoken but wide-spread aversion to airing topics that arepolitically sensitive in various ½eldssometimes limits debates that ought totake place. The growth of knowledge isgreatly inhibited when methodologicalthresholds for evidence are relaxed, andclaims to truth are advanced on the basisof shoddy evidence, or on the basis ofsupposedly possessing privileged insightsimply as a result of one’s race, gender,religion, or ethnicity.

Most scholars and scientists at leadinguniversities would more than likely exer-cise their right to remain silent beforeplacing on the table for debate any num-ber of controversial ideas: for example,the idea that differences in educationalperformance between different racialgroups are not a result of discrimina-tion; that occupational differentiationby gender may be a good thing; that di-etary cholesterol above and beyond ge-netic predispositions has only a minimaleffect on coronary heart deaths; that thechildren of crack cocaine mothers willnevertheless experience normal cogni-tive development; or, until recently, thatprions, as well as bacteria or viruses, cancause disease.

I have suggested that we entertain rad-ical and even offensive ideas at universi-ties because we simultaneously embracerigorous standards in determining theadequacy of truth claims. But if scholar-ly skepticism is sometimes compro-mised by a lack of courage or an intoler-ance for competing points of view, thenthe primary mechanisms by which uni-versities ensure the quality of researchwill not always reliably function. Tocomplicate matters, different disciplineshave evolved somewhat differently ininstitutionalizing mechanisms to ensure

that rigorous standards exist to evaluateideas and the results of research.

Biologists may broadly agree that ad-vocates of creationism are simply inerror and that the theory they defend isunworthy of serious scienti½c debate,while social scientists are more likely, forexample, to disagree about the scholarlymerits of theories that stress the influ-ence of socialization rather than innateabilities on individual achievement. Asnew areas of research and inquiry appearin the modern university and begin todominate their disciplines, the de½nitionof acceptable research questions maywell change, as may de½nitions of whatis acceptable methodology, acceptableevidence, acceptable standards of proof,and also acceptable peer reviewers (whoin turn will judge whether a given schol-ar’s methodology and use of evidence isacceptable). As a statistician might putit, whoever owns the ‘null hypothesis’often determines what is taken for fact.

When skepticism falters or fails, doesthe academic community, even in thelonger run for which it is built, have themechanisms to correct its errors?

This has to be an open question. Cur-rently, there is broader agreement aboutthe appropriate corrective mechanismsin the natural sciences than in the hu-manities and social sciences, althoughin periods of what Thomas Kuhn calledrevolutionary rather than normal sci-ence, we often also ½nd sharp disagree-ments within natural science over stan-dards of proof and truth claims. It is thevery possibility of ongoing disagree-ment, however, that is a primary justi-½cation for protecting and promotingfreedom of thought. John Stuart Millput it this way:

Truth, in the great practical concerns oflife, is so much a question of the reconcil-ing and combining of opposites, that veryfew have minds suf½ciently capacious and

10 Dædalus Spring 2005

Comment byJonathan R.Cole

impartial to make adjustment with an ap-proach to correctness, and it has to bemade by the rough process of a strugglebetween combatants ½ghting under hos-tile banners.9

Moreover, as Mill well knew, it is moreimportant to tolerate an occasional errorin the current appraisal of conflictingideas than to risk compromising free ex-pression. For in the long run, it is unfet-tered freedom of inquiry that ensuresinnovation, intellectual progress, andthe continued growth of knowledge.

I have defended the right of academicfreedom within the community of schol-ars. But what, if any, right to freedomof expression does a student have asagainst his or her professor? The rise ofgroups like Students for Academic Free-dom raises this important question.

Students clearly have the right–in-deed, the obligation–to enter the gener-al debate within the university commu-nity. They have the right to express theirideas forcefully in the classroom, and toargue against their professor’s views.I’ve made the point that professors inthe classroom must never discriminateagainst students on the basis of theirascribed characteristics–simply on thebasis of who they are in terms of theirrace, ethnicity, religion, or gender.

At the same time, there is a clear dif-ferentiation of roles between professorsand students. We expect professors, notstudents, to offer their own best judg-ment on competing truth claims. A stu-dent may argue for creationism or intel-ligent design; but that does not obligehis or her biology professor to take his orher views seriously as a rival to the evo-lutionary accounts favored by virtuallyall contemporary biologists. Similarly, a

professor of Jewish history is under noobligation to take seriously the argu-ments of a student who denies the Holo-caust.

What, then, about a student who sayshe or she is being discriminated againstby Professor Massad of Columbia, be-cause Massad declares the student’s po-sition on the 1982 Shatila massacres inLebanon to be factually erroneous. Isthat student therefore entitled to levelformal charges against Massad?

If we are going to allow the biologyprofessor and the Jewish historian aright to offer their best judgment oncompeting truth claims, and because ofthose judgments to take some studentsmore seriously than others, then don’twe also have to grant this right to JosephMassad?

In any case, we should remember thatthe proper goal of higher education isenlightenment–not some abstract idealof ‘balance.’ Indeed, those who demandbalance on some issues never demand iton others. The University of Chicago’sschool of economics is admired widelyfor its accomplishments. Must Chicagoseek balance by forcing its economicsdepartment to hire scholars with con-trasting points of view?

Occasionally, students have to do thehard work of seeking alternative pointsof view across institutional boundaries.They cannot always expect ‘balance’ tobe delivered in neat packages. It is theprofessor’s pedagogical role that grantshim or her the authority and the right tojudge which scienti½c theories or histor-ical facts are presented in the classroom.We cannot deny the asymmetry in theseroles. If we do, we fail to understand alegitimate goal of higher education: toimpart knowledge to those who lack it.Of course, one can question the compe-tence of a professor–that happens rou-tinely in a good university. But the evalu-

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9 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1989), 49.

ation of that competence must be, andis, left to the professor’s peers–not tostudents, and surely not to trustees, re-gents, congressmen, advocacy groups,or members of the press.

Over the past seventy-½ve years, theSupreme Court has expanded greatly theprotection of free speech. Today, prevail-ing First Amendment doctrine holdsthat the government cannot restrictspeech because of its content, and thatonly forms of “low value” speech, suchas “½ghting words,” libel, commercialadvertising, or obscenity, can be regulat-ed. Universities cannot act outside thelaw,10 but they can–and should–try toexpand still further the limits placed onfree expression, when those constraintshamper inquiry and debate.

Expression in the classroom requiresvirtually absolute protection. Absentsuch protection, professors will hesitateto discuss sensitive topics out of fear ofretribution, suspension, dismissal, or lit-igation.

The university cannot and should notattempt to decide what ideas or perspec-tives are appropriate for the classroom.For one student, a professor’s ideas mayrepresent repugnant stereotypes or ef-forts at intimidation; for another, thesame ideas may represent profound chal-lenges to ostensibly settled issues. Forexample, a professor’s discussion of ourculture’s bias against female circumci-sion may seem to one student an affrontto what is self-evidently a basic humanright; but to another student, it mayseem a provocative illustration of cultur-al imperialism, raising serious moralquestions that ought to be put on thetable for debate. Are we to take seriouslythose who would have us sanction the

professor for raising this subject in aseminar? And if we did, who would becast in the role of the “Grand Inquisi-tor”?

The broadest possible protection offreedom of expression is of a piece withanother important aspect of the acade-my. We have understood for some timenow that the university is not a placewhere we exclusively house or train thekind of scientist or scholar who advisesthe prince–those who currently controlthe government. There are members ofthe faculty who sometimes voluntarilygive advice to the prince–and there mayeven be academic programs (such asRussian studies during the Cold War)that exist in part to inform governmentpolicy–but it is not the point or therationale of universities to furnish suchadvice, nor to have the thematic pursuitsof inquiry in the university shaped bythe interests of the prince. That is whyuniversities will often ½nd in their midstthose who air the most radical critiquesof the prince and his interests. Were weto silence or even to inhibit such people,we would not only be undermining freeinquiry, we would also gradually rein-force the countervailing power of con-formism.

Despite the commitment of the Amer-ican research university to freedom ofthought, the natural tendency of profes-sors and students, as we have seen, is toavoid expressing views that may offendothers. But the responsibility of the uni-versity is to combat this tendency and toencourage, rather than squelch, free-wheeling inquiry. The university mustdo everything it can to combat the coer-cive demand for political litmus testsfrom the Right and the Left, and thepressure to conform with establishedacademic paradigms.

By affording virtually absolute protec-tion to classroom debate, the university

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Comment byJonathan R.Cole

10 Here I’m putting aside the distinction be-tween public and private universities.

encourages the sort of open inquiry forwhich universities exist. Those membersof the university community who arewilling to take on prevailing beliefs andideologies–be they the pieties of theacademic Left or the marching orders ofthe politicians currently in power–needto know that the university will defendthem unconditionally if they are at-tacked for the content of their ideas.

The defense of academic freedom isnever easy.

It is understandable that universityleaders will react to outside attacks withcaution. There is always a risk that tak-ing a public position on a controversialmatter may alienate potential donors oroffend one of the modern university’smany and varied constituencies. In re-sponse to negative publicity, it is entirelynatural for presidents and provosts–andfor trustees and regents–to work fever-ishly ‘to get this incident behind us’ andto reach for an accommodation thatcalms the critics and makes the problemgo away.

However, to act on such understand-able impulses would be a grievous mis-take. There are few matters on whichuniversities must stand on absolute prin-ciple. Academic freedom is one of them.If we fail to defend this core value, thenwe jeopardize the global preeminence ofour universities in the production andtransmission of new knowledge in thesciences, in the arts, indeed in every ½eldof inquiry. Whenever academic freedomis under ½re, we must rise to its defensewith courage–and without compro-mise.

For freedom of inquiry is our reasonfor being.

–March 16, 2005

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