Faculty and professional staff must be able to exercise independent academic judgment in the conduct of their teaching and research.  Academic freedom is important because society needs "safe havens," places where students and scholars can challenge the conventional wisdom of any field—art, science, politics or whatever. This is not a threat to society; it strengthens society. It puts ideas to the test and teaches students to think and defend their ideas.

Of course academic freedom does not mean that "anything goes." No one would argue that a professor can hold students to his or her belief that the sun revolves around the earth, for example. Faculty must act professionally in their scholarly research, their teaching and in their interaction with students.  Institutions of higher education ensure this through policies and procedures that safeguard both students and the academic integrity of the institution.

Recent measures introduced in state legislatures around the country under the guise of a "bill of rights" for college professors and students, however, raise concerns about preserving academic freedom. These measures are modeled after the "Academic Bill of Rights" and the "Student Bill of Rights" promoted by the California-based Center for the Study of Popular Culture, headed by conservative activist David Horowitz. In the U.S. Congress, a bill introduced by House Republicans to reauthorize the federal Higher Education Act includes a section with similar language.

Although couched in high-minded rhetoric, these Bills of Rights in reality seek to spell out how faculty will be hired or evaluated, how they can express themselves in their teaching and how they must evaluate their students.  The measures presume that liberals hold nearly all of the primary academic positions in our colleges and universities and that these faculty members impose their ideological views on students.

This characterization bears no resemblance to what college faculty and staff see in our work as professionals on campus. By every reasonable measure, America's colleges and universities are considered the most diverse, challenging and successful higher education institutions in the world. Higher education faculty members are trained professionals who bring a great variety of viewpoints based on their disciplinary knowledge to the classroom. Professors go through one of the most rigorous hiring and promotion processes anywhere. They are constantly evaluated by their peers on the basis of the quality of their scholarship and teaching.

The AFT believes that passage of such measures, even when the provisions are not made mandatory, would be an invitation to tie up institutions of higher education in an endless round of public hearings and litigation in which non-academics would decide whether enough balance was achieved in the reading list of a particular course or certain persons were hired or asked to be speakers based on their political point of view (see the AFT resolution on Academic Decision Making).

In addition, supporters of these measures are now establishing so-called Students for Academic Freedom chapters to promote a Bill of Rights agenda on a number of campuses. Students are given advice on how to monitor faculty--including distributing "complaint" forms among students and tape-recording "partisan" professors in class. They are advised on how to arrange meetings with administrators and trustees and how to testify before legislatures to highlight "abuses" by professors.

These developments paint a disturbing picture of an academic witch hunt on our nation's campuses.  Passage of such legislation could give legislators license to obtain records, hold hearings and suggest to college faculty and administrators that they are being watched and their actions put in the worst possible light.

The AFT vigorously opposes both state and federal bills that incorporate language of the so-called bills of rights. Such measures create unnecessary and inappropriate government interference to our academic institutions and impose an ideological litmus test on hiring, curriculum and teaching.

The U.S. system of higher education based in a rich tradition of academic freedom, peer evaluation and tenure, as well as the promotion of diverse ideas and voices, is widely seen as the most successful such system in the world.  Government officials should be focused on upholding and increasing support for these important institutions and traditions rather than tearing them down with ideologically driven agendas.  Such efforts will surely have a negative impact on colleges and universities and the students that faculty work with every day at those institutions.