Why Academic Freedom?
Academic freedom is supposed to be an exalted form of free speech. But in fact, it is no more a special offspring of free speech than a free press - and both are precious, equal and worthy siblings of an eminently worthy parent.
Free speech itself, together with freedom of conscience is a result of the magnificent and productive coupling of freedom with truth. In turn, academic freedom, which constitutes the pursuit of truth, will flourish in free societies.
As narrowly defined, academic freedom exists in the context of the academy which in the popular imagination, means our universities and their interactions with each other and the world around them.
But since academic freedom is inextricably linked to freedom in the pursuit of truth, it is not a closed house. Instead, it throws open its doors and invites all to enter in who hold truth and freedom dear. It treats alike the pauper and the prince, the high brow intellectual or academic, and the intellectually curious blue collar worker who does not possess a university education. During the covid-19 pandemic, for example, the eminent Harvard scientist and epidemiologist Marin Kulldorff made the accurate, wise observation that, “during the 16th century reformation, many lay people understood the Bible better than most priests. During the 21st century pandemic, many lay people understood science better than most scientists.” Since truth is universal, so must be its pursuit. And as in Jesus’ parable, all are invited, from every highway of life, to partake of the feast of academic freedom.
Truth is omnipresent, but not necessarily obvious. Sometimes, it may be verified through the methods of science and it is then regarded as “scientifically verified truth.” Truth verified in this manner is often elegant, precise and beneficial to mankind’s material progress. But if truth were always reducible to what the human brain can fully analyze with the methods of science, it would at once cease to be transcendent and infinite.
In fact, scientific truth is often elusive, lying just beyond the ability of a particular hypothesis and a particular method of verification. Without academic freedom, the direction and purpose of a sincere search for truth cannot be established and the academy will remain cloistered, stunted, purposeless and breathing only the stifling air of conformity.
Truth that is not “scientific” in this way, may still be verified - indeed, truth may be said to be self-verifying. Moral truth for example, is verified repeatedly by the moral universe; being mean and cruel to a disabled person verifiably makes a normal human being feel miserable; and the physical truth of gravity is verified as well by the tendency to fall of the child learning to walk, as by the planets in their orbits around the sun.
In this sense, both moral truth and scientifically verifiable (and physical and social) truth may be said to have an objective reality - and it is then the purpose of mankind and the academy to search for and ferret out this reality, discern it from falsehood, proclaim it, refine it and keep pursuing it.
For truth is a many splendored thing and academic freedom is essential to the defence and equipping of its innumerable suitors.
By suppressing academic freedom, therefore, the academy or governing authorities will also be suppressing the pursuit of truth and the direction toward truth and away from falsehood. And thus it is that academic freedom is (or should be) prized and nurtured in the academy (University) and any society that lays claims to freedom. Only then will its faculty and students be free without hindrance, to research, disseminate, discuss and debate what is believed to be true.
Allowing opposing narratives of what is believed to be true is essential to both the scientific method and the methods of the social sciences and the humanities. The ability to openly question any assumption with other assumptions and vigorously debate one idea with another idea results either in the winnowing away of the false and the winning through of the true, or the bringing together of what is true from different ideas, resulting in a new, better and truer idea.
In medicine, academic freedom has resulted in once accepted and hallowed narratives of health and disease being continually replaced by other ideas and other narratives. In the continual churning and upheaval that has resulted from the pursuit of medical truth, many dearly held ideas have had to be given up and physicians have often had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a new and better world of understanding of the miraculous workings of the human body and its interactions with the world around us. But the essence of this progress has been the need for vigorous and open debate and the academic freedom that explicitly makes such debate possible.
Ideas held with great and even certain conviction are not necessarily true. If that were the case, we would still be stuck with the belief that slavery was just and good for humanity; that the stars controlled human destiny; that infections were caused by “bad humours;” that the appearance of pus after surgery was a “laudable” thing; and that women were too feeble minded to vote! All these once fiercely held convictions were hauled over the purifying fire of truth and were discarded and cast aside as false. Again and again, academic freedom has allowed truth to engage with and challenge conviction and certainty of belief.
The sooner that worn and tired and false ideas are abandoned in favour of better and truer ideas, the less society suffers from the consequences of its own ignorance or folly. For example, the discovery of the antibiotic Penicillin by the Scottish scientist Alexander Fleming was quickly recognized and applauded by the medical profession and by industry. Once the production of Penicillin could be ramped up, it was eagerly and rapidly deployed in the battlefields of the second world war and generally welcomed by a grateful public and scientific community.
Quite in contrast to the present era and the covid-19 pandemic, there were no randomized control trials (RCT) in medicine at the time of Alexander Fleming (the first RCT was published in 1948) and no “big Pharma” dominating the RCT, the regulatory agencies and the practice of medicine itself. And yet the simple, elegant truth of Penicillin and its discoverer were not ignored or demonized or sidelined by captured and corrupt medical journals, press and media. Thousands, and very soon millions of lives were saved almost immediately following the ability to manufacture Penicillin for the public.
And then, in the years and decades following the second world war, a rot seems to have settled into the system and a wide, broad, deep and dangerous corruption of pharmaceutical companies, regulatory agencies, universities, and the medical profession itself, is now all too evident and pervasive. Part of this tragic rot has included the loss of academic freedom in our universities, but also in all levels of society.
Those who claim to be “traumatized” by exposure to a particular idea contrary to their own set of unshakeable ideas believe that there is only one narrative, one version of the truth, their truth. This denying of truth and objective reality as independent of one’s individual views, is increasing its hold upon our institutions, our academies and our law makers. It is also depriving society of the well of humility from which flows the acknowledgement that truth and its pursuit is limitless, always beckoning us forward and onward. “Not that I have already attained, but I press on toward the mark.”(Phillipians 3:12-14)
“Trigger warnings,” “safe spaces,” and the “cancelling” of speakers that do not agree with a particular view or idea, are the very opposite of academic freedom in the pursuit of truth. Truth thus denied an entry into the “safe space” of closely guarded and unchallenged views, will continue to knock and seek to be invited in - but in time, it will retreat and leave those in the “safe space” believing they are in the light, when in fact a crippling, deep and desolate darkness will have descended upon them and upon the “safe space” society, academy, city and nation. “If therefore the light in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.”(Matthew 6:23)
Sometimes, it is the academy (University or government authority) itself that imposes upon its students or the people, a certain “policy” which is supposed to be for “everyone’s safety” but in fact amounts to no more than the corralling off and separating of people within a dystopian “safe space” of suffocating sterility.
An important “canary in the coal mine” moment for humanity and for freedom itself, is when inquiries and tribunals are convened and persecution is instituted, against those in the academy who hold views that don’t align with official or common narratives. Whenever this assault on academic freedom is detected, those within and outside the academy who value truth and academic freedom must rise in revolt against the tyranny of conformity.
Winston, the hero of Orwell’s “1984” was one of only a very few individuals who realized that the people of “Oceania” were all under the thrall of the “party line.” Most of us who have read Orwell’s book remember being frightened out of our wits not so much at the party line itself, but at the nonchalant indifference of Oceania’s inhabitants who go about their daily tasks expecting benevolent “Big Brother” to teach them how to think and gladly accepting this instruction without ever expecting the chance to consider alternatives.
“Oceania” is never a distant prospect for humanity, but is ever at our doors, threatening entry. Once entered and established, it is difficult to dislodge. And once established, it extracts its tyrannical and terrifying pound of flesh. The “Oceania” that established its murderous rule in the Soviet Union for example, lasted for more than 70 years.
The slide to a new tyranny, a new descent into a Western “Oceania” may already have begun in North America, Australia/New Zealand and Western Europe. And it would appear that only a determined defence and pushback by the people may save our civilization. The tools of that defence and counteroffensive are freedom, free speech, a free press - and academic freedom.
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)