Today, the American Federation of Teachers, a memberof the Free Exchange on Campus coalition, released Academic Freedom in the21st-Century College and University: Academic Freedom for All Faculty andInstructional Staff (pdf). This new policy statement was developed over the past year with theinvolvement of AFT Higher Education's program and policy council. As with otherpolicy and best practices statements of the division, this one was distributedand widely discussed at the annual higher education issues meeting, which tookplace in Portland, Ore., in March. Comments and suggestionswere incorporated into the final document.

Recently, for AFT On Campus, I asked the statement's primary author, Art Hochner, totalk about the context for this statement, which is the first formal statementthe AFT has released on academic freedom. Hochner is president of the Temple Associationof University Professionals/AFT and an associate professor of human resourcemanagement in the business school at TempleUniversity.

Read the full interview after the jump. 

AFT On Campus: When we hear of academic freedom statements in highereducation, we think of the American Association of University Professors' 1940statement, which has been the academic's bible for years. Why has the AFTreleased its own statement now, and what is the "deep sense of urgency" thatguides its policy recommendations?

Art Hochner: The changedcircumstances of colleges and universities of the early 21st century impelledthe AFT to both embrace and broaden the 1940 statement. Today, most facultyhave no tenure and no access to it. Tenure is the essential bulwark of academicfreedom in the AAUP statement. But nontenure-track full-time faculty andpart-time/adjunct faculty have become a majority of the professoriate. Allfaculty need academic freedom and need to have the protections that allow it toflourish.

AOC: The new statement alludes to current restrictions on theability of faculty to be self-regulating experts and professionals. What trendsand practices are limiting faculty?

AH: Let's start with theacademic staffing crisis. The model of a modern university presumes a facultybuilt around the tenure track. Such faculty are the experts on how to develop,organize and present knowledge to students and the world-at-large. Throughgroup peer review, they evaluate who will become faculty members, what coursesare in the curriculum, how students qualify for degrees and even have input intoimportant institutional policy decisions. That's the ideal, but the actualmodern university is increasingly built around hiring masses of financiallyinsecure, contingent faculty. It's a corporate model of employment built aroundmanagerial decision-making. Contingent faculty-those without access totenure-typically are hired and managed without peer review and have no say ingovernance.

AOC: ... and they are excluded from the protection of academicfreedom?

AH: That's right. Academicfreedom is vital for the functioning of all higher education institutions. It'snot the privilege of a few. If some faculty don't have it, the academic freedomof all of us is diminished. It's our obligation as academic unionists to standup for basic principles. One of those principles is the integrity of thecollege and university. An equally important one is solidarity with all facultyand staff.

AOC: Where do you think the conservative attacks on faculty as agroup of liberals are coming from?

AH: Some critics-generally asmall number of self-appointed guardians of intellectual tradition- do not likethe changes that have taken place in the student body, curriculum andcomposition of the faculty over the past few decades. They're unhappy with openenrollment and affirmative action. They don't like the expansion of theconventional canon of Western thought and literature to include new voices andperspectives. And they perceive overwhelming support for liberal thinking oncampuses. However, there's also a more sinister aspect to many conservativeattacks. A few well-funded ideologues have been using the controversialcomments of some faculty to claim that colleges are bastions of left-wingorthodoxy, and to undermine the public's respect for professors and academicinstitutions. They aim to diminish government's willingness to fulfill itsfunding obligations. It's part of the trend to privatize all public benefits,like railroads, highways and Social Security.

AOC: How important is the academic labor movement to the futureof academic freedom?

AH: It used to be thatfaculty and staff in higher education could rely on an informal social contractto respect the voice and independence of the faculty. This was expressed ininstitutional arrangements, such as the tenure and promotion process andfaculty senates. Now this system is breaking down, with more centralized,corporate-style management at colleges and universities. To secure our academicfreedom, we have to secure our proper place in decision-making at theinstitutional, state and national levels. We need organizations that spaninstitutions, that can provide resources, and that can use all the tools athand, including political involvement. To attain true academic freedom-that is,the freedom to teach, research and be active members of society, without fearof retaliation-labor organizations are indispensable.

AOC: The statement calls for full intellectual property rightsgoverning teaching materials. Have legal measures governing intellectualproperty rights kept up with the rapid developments in technology and distancelearning practices?

AH: In a word, no. The lawtends to give all the rights to the employer, unless there's a specificagreement in place for distributing those rights differently. Faculty have toorganize to influence institutional policies. Negotiating a collectivebargaining agreement covering these subjects is an effective measure. But weneed to organize politically to push for reform of national legislation too.The AFT has issued a statement on this, "Intellectual Property Issues forHigher Education Unions: A Primer" (available at www.aft.org/higher_ed).

AOC: You use a compelling metaphor in the statement: Academicfreedom as a tree having its roots eroded by loss of tenure and governance, andtherefore, as more vulnerable to toppling by gusts of external meddling. Butit's hard to bring sunlight to the situation when the public may not appreciatewhat the loss of academic freedom represents, especially when families thinkthe gravest problem in higher ed is rising costs. How can faculty engage thepublic more effectively on what is happening? How do you make it personal?

AH: We need to bring to lightwhat happens when the teachers and mentors of students are deprived of academicfreedom. That is, what happens to the character and quality of the educationthat students receive-at all levels-when their teachers are afraid to try outnew ideas, to use different methods, to speak up against bad decisions.Students deserve the best we can give them. We can only give them our best whenwe have true academic freedom. That may involve controversial political ideas,but really it involves all independent thinking.

AOC: The statement ends with a utopian ideal: "The overridinghallmark of academic freedom, and of quality in higher education, lies in thepractices that ensure educational decisions are made by educators foreducational reasons-not political or commercial or management reasons." How dowe ensure that happens?

AH: Rather than utopian, Iwould say this ideal is integral to the mission of higher education, which isthe creation, preservation and transmission of knowledge. The challenge is howto institutionalize academic freedom-to turn it from the statement of an idealinto a concrete and enforceable practice. We can do that in many ways: collegeor university rules and regulations, collectively bargained agreements, andlegislation, for instance. Academic freedom has to be backstopped by real jobprotections-by tenure, by reappointment procedures with appeals procedures, andby other mechanisms of due process. The AFT has a wealth of people with ideasand experience who can craft practical solutions. I'm confident that with a lotof hard work we can indeed ensure that academic freedom for all faculty becomesa reality.

AOC: Thank you, Art.