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Category: Academic Freedom

University free speech rankings in the UK and the US

2 February, 201511 March, 2015
| 1 Comment
| Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression, Universities

Spiked Free Speech on CampusFor the first Free Speech University Rankings (FSUR) in the UK, Spiked ranked the policies and actions of universities and students’ unions, for free speech purposes, using a traffic-light system – red is bad; amber has chilled speech; green means a hands-off approach to free speech. An overall ranking for an institution is given as an average of the two (university and students’ union) rankings. FSUR is the first step in a campaign by Spiked, in partnership with students around the UK, against free speech restrictions on campus in the UK.

I wonder how Trinity College Dublin would do under the FSUR heads of assessment:…

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Philosophical questions about fascism and free speech

17 October, 201119 October, 2011
| 6 Comments
| Academic Freedom, Freedom of Expression

Logos for Phil, BNP, TCD

Last Tuesday, in the My Education Week column in the Irish Times, Paddy Prendergast, the Provost of Trinity College Dublin (and thus my boss) wrote a diary of his working week. This is how his entry for Wednesday, October 5th, began (with added links):

I meet with the Senior Dean and Dean of Students to discuss the student debating society, the Philosophical Society’s invitation to the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, to participate in a debate later this month. The issue has received considerable media coverage, but more importantly there are objections from our own college community. Freedom of speech is an important principle as is that of self-governance of student societies. We agree to meet with the Philosophical Society and consider this serious matter further. …

This seemed positive enough. Both freedom of speech and student society self-governance would pull in favour of allowing Nick Griffin to speak. Don’t get me wrong: Griffin’s views are loathsome, and the BNP is a hateful organisation, but I defend their right to spew their foul and horrid bile simply so that it can be exposed for the obnoxious and indefensible nonsense that it is. But this debate is not to be.…

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Great news: criminal libel case in France against Joe Weiler is dismissed

3 March, 2011
| No Comments
| Academic Freedom, criminal libel, Freedom of Expression, General

Journal Editor Wins Libel Case Over Negative Book Review

March 3, 2011, 1:49 pm

A journal editor who was sued in France for criminal libel because of a negative book review has won his case, he told The Chronicle today. Joseph H.H. Weiler, a professor of law at New York University, said that a French court had ruled against the complaint brought against him by Karin N. Calvo-Goller, a scholar in Israel. Ms. Calvo-Goller took issue with a critical review of one of her books on the Global Law Books Web site, which Mr. Weiler edits. 

via chronicle.com

 

…

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Views: Save Academic Freedom – Inside Higher Ed

28 February, 2011
| No Comments
| Academic Freedom, General

… “Academic freedom now confronts challenges powerful enough to ask not what its future will be,” writes Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors, in No University Is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom (2010), “but whether it will have a future at all.

Nelson’s warning is timely. But his analysis is incomplete. Focusing on how political, corporate, and administrative intrusions threaten academic freedom, Nelson casts professors as victims of powerful anti-intellectual forces. But that’s not the whole story. And if academic freedom is to be saved, the whole story must be told.

… Academic freedom belongs to the public — it is not the property of academics. Professors must explain why academic freedom is vital to our democracy — and prove that they deserve it.

Beset by budget shortfalls, rising tuition, poor learning outcomes, and scandal, our colleges and universities are under more scrutiny than ever. Demands for accountability have never been louder. Failure to meet those demands has never had a higher price tag.

Professors must decide how much academic freedom is worth to them. Is it worth policing themselves — consistently, consequentially, and transparently? If so, academic freedom might just have a future after all.

Erin O’Connor and Maurice Black are research fellows at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

…

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Is a lost First worth £5m?

16 February, 201117 September, 2020
| 3 Comments
| Academic Freedom, Academic judgment, Andrew Croskery, Contract, Grading and Marking, Litigation, Universities

University of Bradford Faculty of Engineering and Informatics buildingAfter Andrew Croskery comes Tony Chinedu Wogu. According to the Daily Telegraph and The Register, Tony Chinedu Wogu has failed in his bid to sue the University of Bradford for £5m compensation, alleging that a 2:2 and not a First in Computing Science was the result of discrimination and breach of contract. Judge Andrew Collender QC struck out his case, saying academics had a much better understanding of the quality of a student’s work than lawyers did. As Treacy J had done in Croskery, Collender QC pointed out that Mr Wogu could seek judicial review of the university’s decision to award him a 2:2, but only after he had exhausted his internal appeals. Moreover, he reasserted the principle of judicial deference to matters of purely academic judgment (as opposed to breaches of procedure):

This court has the most limited of powers to interfere in such a decision. This court has not the power or expertise to simply examine or to determine the proper degree grade to which the claimant would have been entitled from the University of Bradford. That is a decision particularly within the scope of an academic institution. It would not be for this court to apply its judgment as to the degree level reached and substitute that for the university’s … and the defendants’ application to strike out is successful.

…

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Academic freedom and tenure: some further thoughts (Donncha Kavanagh) « University Blog

1 February, 2011
| No Comments
| Academic Freedom, General, Tenure

…The state then, as argued by Kant in 1798, has a duty to protect academic freedom in order to enhance if not ensure the rule of reason in public life, while the university has commensurate duty to counter the excesses of the state and its desires.

… neither should one be in thrall to academic freedom, or use it to simply buttress selfish desires for permanent employment and security. In this regard, I think academic freedom should not always be bundled together with the concept of ‘permanency’ (which varies in meaning depending on context). …

… If academic freedom is a meaningful privilege that comes with real responsibilities, it must have an elitist dimension, which means that there needs to be a robust process to determine who is accorded this freedom (qua responsibility). …

via universitydiary.wordpress.com

See also Stephen Mennell and Paddy Healy Defending academic freedom (Letter, Irish Times, 1 February 2011):

the debate on academic freedom … concerns the freedom of the academic expert to speak the truth in the public interest. That freedom is underpinned by the right to tenure in the Universities Act (1997).

Ferdinand von Prondzynski Lack of trust is the biggest threat to our academic freedom
(column, Irish Times, 1 February 2011):

If we are serious about exploiting the smart economy, we need to build up understanding between our academics and the public.

…

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Sarah Ludington: The Dogs that Did Not Bark: Academic Freedom, Tenure, and the Silence of the Legal Academy During World War II

1 February, 2011
| No Comments
| Academic Freedom, General, Tenure

During World War II, the legal academy was virtually uncritical of the government’s conduct of the war, despite some obvious domestic abuses of civil rights, such as the internment of Japanese-Americans. This silence has largely been ignored in the literature about the history of legal education. This Article argues that there are many strands of causation for this silence. On an obvious level, World War II was a popular war fought against a fascist threat, and left-leaning academics generally supported the war. On a less obvious level, law school enrollment plummeted during the war, and the numbers of full-time law professors dropped by half. Of those professors “laid off” during the war, many took employment in government agencies and thus effectively silenced themselves. Finally, the American Association of Law Schools had only adopted a strong position on academic freedom and tenure in 1940. The commitment to academic freedom and tenure was insecure in many institutions and was only weakened by the severe economic strain of the war. To illustrate the effect of these larger forces, this Article tells the stories of five professors who criticized domestic policy during the war and the institutional consequences of their dissent. Of those professors, only one – a tenured professor at New York University – was fired during the war.

…

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Tenure and academic freedom in the news

31 January, 20111 February, 2011
| 3 Comments
| Academic Freedom, Tenure, Universities

Tenure: I'll take that as a no!The rather arcane principles of academic tenure and academic freedom, which have long featured on this blog, have recently moved close to the centre of industrial relations debate and political discussion. The National Strategy for Higher Education in Ireland (the Hunt Report) and the Public Service Agreement 2010-2014 (the Croke Park Agreement) seem to imperil both concepts. The current conception of academic tenure is threatened by proposals to make significant changes to academic employment conditions, and the current conception of academic freedom is undermined by recommendations that fundamental academic choices should be determined not by academics or institutions but at national level. It is unsurprising, therefore, that a recent meeting of Irish academics protested against the implementation of the Croke Park agreement in third-level institutions, and called for the defence of tenure and academic freedom.

Some colleges and universities have been strong in their defence of these concepts. For example, I have already discussed the provisions of Trinity’s 2010 Statutes protecting tenure and academic freedom. Moreover, the Trinity’s Council and Board have recently approved a detailed and progressive Policy on Academic Freedom. I have also discussed similar statutory provisions in other Irish universities. To that, I can now add the provisions of NUI Maynooth‘s statutes relating to tenure.…

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Welcome

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Hi there! Thanks for dropping by. I’m Eoin O’Dell, and this is my blog: Cearta.ie – the Irish for rights.


“Cearta” really is the Irish word for rights, so the title provides a good sense of the scope of this blog.

In general, I write here about private law, free speech, and cyber law; and, in particular, I write about Irish law and education policy.


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