Search Results for “academic freedom” – Page 8

Some time ago, I mused that Irish universities seeking the freedom to set their own fees might decide to “de-nationalise” and “go private” by means of a Unilateral Declaration of Independence, but I concluded then that it would never happen. Some time later, the old adage “never say never” proved itself once again, as I noted that the rector of Imperial College London suggested that Imperial, Oxford, Cambridge, the LSE and UCL should go private and form an independent US-style Ivy League. Earlier this year, Ferdinand von Prondzynski also speculated about this issue on his blog. Last week, things moved from speculation closer to reality: the Sunday Telegraph reported that Cambridge University is beginning to consider going private for precisely that reason, and the the Guardian yesterday reported that the LSE is doing likewise, amid fears a rise in tuition fees will not be enough to allow them to do what they already do let alone to compete with elite US universities. Of course, there are less drastic solutions, but the abolition of teaching grants for the humanities in the UK following the Browne Report might be the spur to this course of action:

Andrew Oswald, an economist and professor of behavioural science at Warwick Business School, says … “I certainly expect to see a number of large private universities of the kind that can rival the best on the east coast of America in my lifetime,” ….

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Grievance poses academy ‘threat’

8 October, 201031 January, 2013

| 4 Comments

| Academic Freedom, Andrew Croskery, Contract, Grading and Marking, Litigation, Universities

Further to my two previous posts concerning student challenges to degree classification, there is a piece in this week’s Times Higher Education on the judicial review proceedings taken by Andrew Croskery challenging his degree results in Queen’s University Belfast. The piece contains some interesting reactions to the challenge [with added links]:

Grievance poses academy ‘threat’

… Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, warned that if the case were successful it could unleash a wave of similar challenges. “Of course it is important that universities do right by students. But if a student feels they are getting inadequate supervision, contact or anything else, they should deal with it up front and at the time. Otherwise the floodgates will be opened and it will be impossible to judge genuine cases from chancers,” he said.

Roger Brown, professor of higher education policy at Liverpool Hope University, described the case as a battle between academic authority and the marketisation of higher education. He said a ruling in favour of Mr Croskery would be “disastrous” because it would undermine universities’ academic authority. He noted that legal challenges of college grades were quite common in the US but said British courts had taken the view in similar previous cases that universities were in the best position to make academic judgements.

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Rationales for free speech online

16 May, 2010

| 2 Comments

| Freedom of Expression

Angela Daly, a PhD candidate in Law by the EUI, Florence, has just published a fascinating article on SSRN on the extent to which the existing rationales for freedom of expression apply online.

The abstract provides:

The Internet, and Rationales for Free Expression

The changes to society brought by the Internet have prompted a challenge to orthodoxy in a number of areas of law, Intellectual Property being a notable example. Human rights, especially those related to information, knowledge and ideas, have been drawn into this re-evaluation, with various issues being encountered in practice demanding solutions that accord with respect for rights and freedoms, and with the functioning of this new technology. Nevertheless, the theoretical aspect of human rights in the Internet context has not been so much addressed. The Internet has implications for how rights are conceived, especially the freedoms of speech and expression. This study is an examination of whether the existing rationales for free speech and expression still apply in the context of cyberspace. These rationales, coming mainly from court decisions (in particular, the US Supreme Court) as well as the academic literature (notably Cass Sunstein‘s work), will be examined, alongside observations about the state of play in the Internet, with Yochai Benkler‘s elaboration of the development of “commons-based peer production” initiatives being of particular relevance.

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The innocent have nothing to hide?

11 May, 201012 May, 2010

| 7 Comments

| Privacy

Human Rights in Ireland‘s superb Blog Carnival on DNA Databases (context | 2010 Bill (pdf) here and here | mass screening | European experience | Australia | Scotland) picks up and amplifies my concerns about DNA privacy. In particular, David O’Dwyer‘s post argues that the common trope that “the Innocent have nothing to fear!” exacerbates “the growing perception of ‘us’ and ‘them’ in society – ‘Us’ the law abiding citizens and ‘Them’, the law breakers, the ‘Barbarians at the gate'” (by no means a uniquely Irish concern). He concludes that

While these laws may seem to be in ‘our’ interest

…There has been sufficient miscarriages of justice in the history of crime in this and in other jurisdictions to indicate a belief that ‘the innocent have nothing to fear’ is not necessarily the whole answer.

McGuinness J –Gilligan v Criminal Assets Bureau [1997] IEHC 106; [1998] 3 IR 185 (26 June 1997) [118].

McGuinness J’s dictum was approved by Hardiman J in the Supreme Court in O’C v DPP [2000] IESC 58 (19 May 2000) [195]. Concerns over the too-easy invocation of the trope have animated previous posts on this blog. As Toby Stevens observed on The Privacy, Identity & Consent Blog:

Debunking a myth: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

… “Nothing to hide, nothing to fear” is a myth, a fallacy, a trojan horse wheeled out by those who can’t justify their surveillance schemes, databases and privacy invasions.

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Oh no, it’s yet another post about blasphemy; oh yes, it is

30 March, 201010 November, 2010

| 4 Comments

| Blasphemy

: An Act against Atheism and Blasphemy, 1697; Massachusetts; 1759 printing, via Wikipedia

The Massachusetts Act against Blasphemy, 1697 (pictured right) amplified the common law offence of blasphemous libel. It was one of the four heads of the common law crime of libel which applied throughout the common law world, including Ireland. Section 35 of the Defamation Act, 2009 abolishes three of those four heads: the common law offences of defamatory, seditious and obscene libel. Similarly, section 73 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 in the UK does the same thing. However, the positions in Ireland and the UK diverge in their treatment of the fourth head, that of blasphemous libel. In the UK, the Blasphemy Act, 1697 (9 Will 3, c 35) was repealed by section 10 and Schedule 4 to the Criminal Law Act 1967, and section 79 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel. On the other hand, in Ireland, the already-notorious section 36 of the Defamation Act, 2009, goes in precisely the opposite direction, providing for an offence of blasphemy. The difference is not so great as it might appear, however, since the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 made incitement to religious hatred a crime in the UK.…

Defamation, opinion, and the presumption of innocence

12 October, 200931 July, 2016

| 6 Comments

| Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish cases

“Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”

William Blackstone Commentaries on the Laws of England (vol 4) 358

With very little coverage (Day 1: Irish Times here and here | RTÉ; Day 2: Irish Times), a case which had the capacity to make a fundamental change to Irish defamation law was decided in the Supreme Court at the end of last week. Two members of the Birmingham Six have taken defamation proceedings against leading English human rights barrister Sir Louis Blom–Cooper QC (pictured left). Blom-Cooper sought to have the case struck out on the basis that his expression of opinion was constitutionally protected. However, the Supreme Court allowed the case to proceed, and (if the press reports are accurate) ducked the constitutional question, at least for the time being.

The story begins with the presumption of innocence, embodied in the quote from Blackstone, above. In Woolmington v DPP [1935] AC 462, [1935] UKHL 1 (23 May 1935) Viscount Sankey held that “the presumption of innocence in a criminal case is strong”, and emphasised, that throughout the web of the criminal law,

… one golden thread is always to be seen that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt … If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner, as to whether the prisoner killed the deceased with a malicious intention, the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal.

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Updates: Joyce, hecklers and broadcasting

2 October, 20091 January, 2012

| 1 Comment

| Academic Freedom, Blogging, Broadcasting Authority of Ireland, Censorship, Copyright, Cyberlaw, Digital Rights, Freedom of Expression, James Joyce, journalism, Media and Communications, Regulation, Universities

I suppose if I spent ages thinking about it, I could find a spurious thread linking three stories that caught my eye over the last few days, but in truth there is none, except that they update matters which I have already discussed on this blog. (Oh, all right then, they’re all about different aspects of freedom of expression: the first shows that copyright should not prevent academic discussion; the second shows that hecklers should not have a veto; and the third is about broadcasting regulation).

First, I had noted the proclivity of the estate of James Joyce to be vigorous in defence of its copyrights; but it lost a recent case and now has agreed to pay quite substantial costs as a consequence:

Joyce estate settles copyright dispute with US academic

The James Joyce Estate has agreed to pay $240,000 (€164,000) in legal costs incurred by an American academic following a long-running copyright dispute between the two sides. The settlement brings to an end a legal saga that pre-dates the publication in 2003 of a controversial biography of Joyce’s daughter, Lucia, written by Stanford University academic Carol Shloss. …

Who will examine the examiners?

11 August, 20094 April, 2012

| 3 Comments

| Grading and Marking, Juvenal, Universities

Marking exams, grading papers, and evaluating assessments are the bane of academics’ lives (even worse, in my view, than the ever multiplying waves of administrative paperwork that seem to be taking over the university). During the early summer annual exam marking season, Mary Beard and Ferdinand von Prondzynski had some interesting observations about the process; now, just in time for the late summer repeat exam marking season, Peter Black enters the fray; and all of their observations remind me of the classic guide to grading exams which I commend to all hard-pressed examiners out there. …

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Search Results for: %s

Is it unthinkable that an Irish university could go private?

Grievance poses academy ‘threat’

Grievance poses academy ‘threat’

Rationales for free speech online

The Internet, and Rationales for Free Expression

The innocent have nothing to hide?

Debunking a myth: If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear

Oh no, it’s yet another post about blasphemy; oh yes, it is

Defamation, opinion, and the presumption of innocence

Updates: Joyce, hecklers and broadcasting

Joyce estate settles copyright dispute with US academic

Who will examine the examiners?