can it be both? - ~Courtney F

"Academic Freedom" is neither. How's that for contrary? :)\ - Aaron the Librarian

Joan, I'm not sure academic freedom is a concept that has a lot of traction outside of academia and people who identify with academia. - Mark Kille

Steve, still being contrary: so what? If an individual would get fired at Southwest Missouri State for a particular viewpoint but would be unremarkable at Reed, is it the viewpoint that needs protecting per se in order for society to benefit from it? And why should "protection" for a viewpoint be defined as "publicly espoused by one or more employees of a university or college"? - Mark Kille

Dorothea, it does seem weird that a professor working on, say, the economics or sociology or ethics of scholarly communication would have more freedom to explore different possibilities and speak publicly about them than a librarian charged with making sure scholarly communication actually happens efficiently and effectively. - Mark Kille

Steve, I would say that "fear, distrust, cronyism, etc." is the burden of every human institution so far created. :) But in the case of academic freedom, I guess what I am wondering is whether political interference would be consistent or pervasive enough across the country that American society as a whole would suffer from the inevitable cases of individual academics being harassed or fired. Which I would presume would happen in non-trivial numbers. - Mark Kille

Mark, doesn't the presumption that firings would happen in non-trivial numbers suggest you already assume it would be pervasive? As for consistency, if you really want to break the country up into many homogeneous, tiny and antagonistic parts (arguably a reasonable goal, though I would prefer to dial down the antagonism and the homogeny, myself), there are simpler and faster-acting options... - Marianne

Marianne, I'm not sure that non-trivial and pervasive go together, no. 100 cases a year, to pick a more-or-less random number, would be a non-trivial number. But if 20 states accounted for 90 cases, I wouldn't call that pervasive. I'm also not sure that there is any direct relationship between the local professoriate and local culture. - Mark Kille

Steve, not that I'm in favor of regionally-sensitive political firings, but I'm not clear on why "you can't do that" is a better defense of academic freedom than "we're going to make you pay politically for doing that." Or put a different way, why "you can't fire me because I'm a professor" uniquely and best serves society's interest in vigorous and free intellectual conversations. - Mark Kille

All I want is the subtle, nuanced, coded language to go away and people be able to use the most natural (to them) expressions of their ideas without having to self-censor to avoid giving offense. It is a lot to ask, I know this, but at some point along my journey I realized that I have to accept the poorly-worded, offensive to me, phraseology of others ... why shouldn't everyone else? - Aaron the Librarian

Steve, since I've self-identified as being contrary, it would be unkind for me to push you past your steamability-point. Thanks for putting up with me this far. - Mark Kille

Aaron, I think part of what academics get paid for is expressing themselves well. Another part of what they get paid for is teaching *others* to express themselves well. (True in the sciences as much as other disciplines.) I don't have a problem with academia being a place where language (and the ideas behind the language) gets the hell picked out of it. - Mark Kille

Mark, the problem with "subtle, nuanced, coded language" is it provides a place for expressions which seem broad-minded but are in fact code for hidden agendas. It doesn't only happen in academia, for sure, but the nancing around "forbidden" (non-PC) topics which takes place in academia is disappointing. - Aaron the Librarian

Aaron, it's just not something I can get that worked up about. Maybe it's all my time in administration, but "hidden agendas" is not something I've seen actual evidence of, and people who are surprised or upset when others take offense at something they've said don't get much sympathy from me. - Mark Kille

I'm with you, Mark - you said contrary & here I am :) - Aaron the Librarian

Because people disagree on what benefits society, and that can threaten individual expression. - Meg VMeg

And actually, I would say that it's not even really about having opinions or expressing viewpoints, per se. It's about being allowed to create new knowledge without worrying about upsetting old knowledge, and having freedom to pursue new/risky/unusual hypotheses/ideas, the results of which may end up offending everyone or boring everyone or simply failing. The point is that you aren't limited by having to anticipate which it will be: you'll still have a job. - Meg VMeg

"The point is that you aren't limited by having to anticipate which it will be: you'll still have a job." <-- Where I'm being contrary is, I understand that this is the assumption, and it makes logical sense, and I'm all in favor of *everyone* having the freedom to occasionally fail or bore or offend in their jobs, but. Is there evidence that it actually works out this way? Amount of non-academic innovation vs. academic, correlation of increase in innovation following the AAUP issuing its Declaration of Principles in 1915, decrease in innovation in recent history as adjunctification takes hold, that kind of thing? It's kind of like, we know that congressional representatives tend to respond poorly to the constant pressures of re-election, but we *don't* know that we'd get better legislation if they had life appointments. - Mark Kille

How do you propose that we quantify innovation in a gift/reputation economy? - Meg VMeg

Must something be measurable in order to have worth? - Meg VMeg

If you believe that academic freedom benefits society, then what do you care how this benefit is quantified by anyone else, on any other scale? Also: Courtney totally had it in the first comment :) - Meg VMeg

Academic freedom is a recognition that academic work is particularly valuable and so is afforded particular protections: freedom to inquire in directions that may be unpopular, freedom to teach the truth as they see it, and the same freedom other citizens have to hold opinions on topics outside their area of expertise. (That is the corner in which wingnuttery lives and causes problems.) A bit of job security seems cheap at the price. And tenure shouldn't mean you can't be fired - just not fired for ideological reasons or without cause. - barbara fister

"How do you propose that we quantify innovation in a gift/reputation economy?" <-- I was going to be flip and reference Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, but then I realized that all the social media sites with upvote/like and downvote/dislike are actually doing it. No, I don't think only measurable things have worth--but I do think that if people don't share a premise on the worth of something, it is hard to persuade each other to the other's view without evidence of some kind, and measurements are evidence king in contemporary American society (for better or worse, mostly worse.) I care because a non-trivial segment of the American population today appears to think that academic freedom is nothing more than academics' base self-interest. Which I suppose gets at the idea that academic work is particularly valuable--if society as a whole seems to be moving away from that premise, will repeating "but really it is" work? - Mark Kille