The Moonspeaker:
Where Some Ideas Are Stranger Than Others...
FREEDOM ACADEMY
These days it seems the notion of "academic freedom," whatever it may mean to the person or persons who invoke it, is honoured more in the breech than anything else. The baleful influence of greed and politicization has spurred a growing crisis of credibility across the sciences, having successfully attacked the humanities and social sciences for decades already. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly, the various people invoking and arguing about academic freedom don't seem to share a definition of the concept. Without so much as a widely agreed upon draft definition, just about any researcher or academic can claim a violation of their academic freedom when faced with any challenge to their ability to publish, research, or teach. It would be difficult to use an academic freedom-based defense when facing an investigation for non-academic misconduct, for example, although not impossible if founded on evidence. Nevertheless, while there is no widely shared definition of "academic freedom," various academic and research organizations have released official statements of their views about what it means, and popular encyclopaedias often include an article discussing it. To date one of the most detailed and thorough analyses and explanations of the concept is enshrined in the poorly known "Declaration of Academic Freedom," published in the sadly short-lived journal Progress in Physics in early 2006 and reproduced below. Although it may sound very abstract, academic freedom is in fact very practical, and it reveals important contradictions between what it means to research or teach with a view to producing profit for private individuals versus public service-oriented work. The public-serving work includes researching to add to human knowledge, teaching to share this knowledge, and teaching to support others in learning how to contribute to human knowledge as well. Considering researchers and instructors may interact directly with the most vulnerable members of society, academic freedom cannot be separated from consideration of ethics and potential social impacts.
The Canadian Encyclopedia's layperson-oriented article summarizes academic freedom as commonly meaning "the freedom of professors to teach, research and publish, to criticize and help determine the policies of their institutions, and to address public issues as citizens without fear of institutional penalties." The article's author, Michael Horn then outlines much of what this common meaning leaves out. First, that not only individual professors but also students, educational institutions, and representative bodies of teachers or students also have academic freedom. It is nonetheless far from unlimited, being functionally absent below the post-secondary level, and constrained at the post-secondary level. Some of those constraints are certainly practical, reflecting no particular bias or animus. Evidently small children in the elementary grades are not able to exercise academic freedom yet, and a researcher based at a smaller college will not have multi-million dollar equipment at hand to use. Other constraints are an uncomfortable combination of practical and political, especially definition of curricula and criteria for awarding degrees and matriculation. As Horn observes, "Hence academic freedom is generally linked to the idea of academic self-government, in the hope that limits will not be imposed arbitrarily and improperly." Overall, when academic freedom makes the newspapers today, the scholars involved have engaged with socially and politically controversial topics. Horn writes that before 1960, scholars generally avoided controversial subjects, but could find themselves trammelled if they were deemed disloyal to the president of their institution or the institution itself.
This description reveals a fundamental tension created in part by the difficulties of housing both teaching and research in the same institution, although this is not exclusive to universities. The mediaeval european university was at first mainly a development of the monasteries. The churches could not maintain a monopoly on advanced learning and research forever, as ambitious male students pooled their resources to hire instructors and rent buildings to hold classes, creating early professional schools. At least initially, the monastic model left little room for academic exploration, since its focus was producing priests and monks to carry out church-related work. The required texts and key areas of study were already defined, and if the higher level clerics undertook research, they were focussed on such areas as canon law and manuscript analysis to ensure the quality and acceptability of their bibles and prayer books. But of course people are curious, and there were tasks that inevitably pushed the clerics towards what today we would call scientific and social research. There was the problem of calculating movable feast days properly for instance, which demanded improvements to the calendar based on updated astronomical observations and calculations. The execrable practice of missionizing helped drive a growing interest in linguistics and early ethnology. In northern north america, universities have a different background. In eastern canada and the eastern seaboard of the united states, they frequently began as a group of religious colleges that joined together to establish a larger degree-granting institution. Further west, universities are more commonly founded by a state or provincial act, and at least in canada, would avoid the religious college route. Some started out as teaching colleges with extension programs tied to older universities in the east, others as universities outright with faculties of arts and science. The latter were already framed as intended to carry out research and teaching, but both began with a fundamentally autocratic governance system led by the university president.
Effective faculty and student governance in universities and colleges, and their attendant potential influence on academic decisions is in part a product of the political ferment of the 1960s. Until then, "academic freedom" didn't have much meaning, research and teaching direction came from the president and senate or board of governors. However, topdown demands for obedience and control does not mix well with skilled and effective research or teaching. After all, it is the researchers and instructors who do the actual work on which the university depends, adjusting to the needs and requirements of their students and/or research teams, and building independent reputations for expertise in their fields. Furthermore, over time university academics and now scholars in other types of institutions engaged in specialized research have come under greater pressure to contribute their expertise elsewhere. In canada, almost before such scholars took up posts as newspaper columnists or public speakers, they were called upon to staff royal commissions. Now, especially if they are receiving any sort of public funding, scholars are expected to work on areas of social and political interest, including publishing their work and then publicizing it. The famous and increasingly exploitative "publish or perish" pressure no longer refers just to articles and books. Now it includes demands to have a presence on social media and produce short to medium length articles for new online publications such as The Conversation or Aeon. But this means scholars must inevitably end up speaking, writing, or posting about controversial topics, and at least some of them will develop a level of influence that challenges the power of their notional managers or employers, whether or not they seek to do so. In many ways then, academic freedom is an unwieldy label applied to efforts to manage the clashing power relationships and priorities of scholars, funders, and institutions from universities to editorial boards.
Similar to other controversial topics, public discussion of academic freedom tends to go through cycles of high interest and considerable noise with very little trustworthy information. As a result, many academic and research institutions have composed and published formal statements about academic freedom, explaining what it means in their specific context and how it is maintained. The 2005-2006 academic year was a particularly fruitful one for such statements, including one from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AACU) as well as the already mentioned journal Progress in Physics. The former is focussed on "intellectual diversity in undergraduate education," and so even if not more widely known, its content is familiar to a lay audience, and its preface explicitly intends to "addresses many of the myths and misrepresentations that have been perpetuated through the insistent external campaign to encourage political oversight of teaching and learning practices on college and university campuses." Somewhat unusually for a united states-based organization, the AACU explicitly discusses both academic freedom and academic responsibilities. Their discussion reveals they consider academic freedom to include the right to explore "significant and controversial questions" as well as conduct research, teach, and "enable students—through whole col- lege programs of study—to acquire the learning they need to contribute to society." Conversely, the responsibilities include presenting research publicly so it may be reviewed by peers and experts, to gather and use the best available evidence, and foster students' learning. For their part, as AACU notes, many undergraduates find exposure to new and controversial ideas exhilarating, others threatening. Therefore their instructors have an important role in guiding undergraduates in a way that supports them in becoming independent thinkers. Furthermore, the AACU declared, "A college or university is a dedicated social place where a variety of competing claims to truth can be explored and tested, free from political interference." Thankfully, the AACU is careful to briefly discuss the "ideal versus the real," leading up to an important summary statement:
Academic freedom is sometimes confused with autonomy, thought and speech freed from all constraints. But academic freedom implies not just freedom from constraint but also freedom for faculty and students to work within a scholarly community to develop the intellectual and personal qualities required of citizens in a vibrant democracy and participants in a vigorous economy. Academic freedom is protected by society so that faculty and students can use that freedom to promote the larger good.
From the late nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century, many colleges and universities ran their on campus residences very differently than they do today. Each residence had a paid head or master, sometimes a faculty member, sometimes not. It was expected that the university or college behaved in place of the parents, and treated younger undergraduates accordingly, later with additional unfair interference in the adult lives of women students. Today undergraduate institutions still have this "in loco parentis" role, and it is less common for potential students to take an extra preparatory or gap year between finishing high school proper and entering them. This leads to an even wider range of individual maturity and life experience than would necessarily be the case in other years. Like it or not, the application of academic freedom and academic responsibilities will vary by year and student cohort.
In the troubled 2020s, afflicted with extremities of political interference in the academy and its various relations and offshoots in northern north america not seen since the 1950s, Progress in Physics' "Declaration of Academic Freedom" is especially poignant. It discusses the impact of longterm policies favouring large research and technology projects at the expense of small ones and individual researchers. Not only had this already led to challenges competing for public funding and access to technical facilities and support, it had already negatively impacted the perceived credibility of two types of scholars. One, those working on less popular or orthodoxy-challenging research, the other those in what today is referred to as the "alt-ac track." Honest and effective research should not be a popularity contest, but all too often it is. The authors note that historically sound work by marginalized scholars has been repeatedly suppressed, only to be vindicated later, often leading to significant development in fields formerly stymied by group think. The first article of the declaration states:
The aim of this Declaration is to uphold and further the fundamental doctrine that scientific research must be free of the latent and overt repressive influence of bureaucratic, political, religious and pecuniary directives, and that scientific creation is a human right no less than other such rights and forlorn hopes as propounded in international covenants and international law.
The subsequent articles reveal the authors responding to a need to reassert some basic facts about science, scientific research, and who does it.
- Article 2: Who is a scientist
- Article 3: Where is science produced
- Article 4: Freedom of choice of research theme
- Article 5: Freedom of choice of research methods
- Article 6: Freedom of participation and collaboration in research
- Article 7: Freedom of disagreement in scientific discussion
- Article 8: Freedom to publish scientific results
- Article 9: Co-authoring of scientific papers
- Article 10: Independence of affiliation
- Article 11: Open access to scientific information
- Article 12: Ethical responsibility of scientists
It is fair to conclude the current endangered state of honest, independent scientific research publicly shared did not begin with whichever political leader a person may like least. A part of what inspired the "Declaration of Academic Freedom" was the experience of the late Halton C. Arp, a revered observational astronomer whose data and analysis challenges the current orthodox model of the origins of the universe, the big bang hypothesis. Arp was far from a crank, yet found himself sidelined, struggling for telescope time and finally driven out of his former research home of mount palomar observatory, even as other astronomers were able to replicate his findings. This is precisely what is not supposed to happen, according to how "science" is portrayed. Research undertaken in good faith, applying accepted observational and analytic methods is supposed to automatically receive a fair hearing even if it does not conform with a widely accepted hypothesis. The researcher(s) are supposed to be allowed to freely share their work to their colleagues via publication in journals and presentations at conferences. This was emphatically not the case by the late 1990s, and has only grown worse since, to the point that it is hard to find much about work by researchers in the hard sciences on the "alt-ac" track. Simply being "alt-ac" for a researcher in a hard science is now almost considered de facto proof of being a crank, an almost insurmountable barrier for researchers willing and able to demonstrate they are not. Something has gone terribly wrong here.
Meanwhile, scholars in the humanities and social sciences have been forced to pour considerable energy into fighting for "academic freedom" in the "alt-ac" track. They too often face barriers to publication, conference participation, and access to funding. In many post-secondary institutions these areas and their component disciplines have a teaching faculty composed almost wholly of "sessionals," scholars who are paid on a by course basis. The pay is poor, the hours long, and this in itself makes it difficult to carry out any sort of research program. Lacking secure tenure, it is difficult for sessionals to take up controversial subjects in their teaching or research. All too often, universities turn on sessional or even scholars working contract terms of anything from one to five years whom they originally found perfectly acceptable if they run afoul of the political views of donors or local politicians.
We are encouraged to think that academic freedom is not relevant to anyone who is not some sort of scholar, especially the sort of scolar who works in a college or university. But this is far from the case. As the terrible ongoing saga of the COVID-19 pandemic keeps demonstrating, political interference does active harm, and not just to the credibility, research and service programs at universities, hospitals, and other organizations with a public service mandate. Trapped between demands that they "give students what they want" and to expand program options so that poorly prepared undergraduates can pick up some sort of degree in something they already think they know, the humanities and social sciences are constantly mocked. It is all too easy to make fun of the ludicrous output of such derivative fields as "culture and media studies," or the irresponsible and insane output of "queer studies." But these are not representative of the majority of students, instructors, or researchers in the humanities and social sciences. They are merely the ones best for clickbait articles and pandering to the groups most interested in destroying post-secondary education for anyone but the very rich. By constantly whittling away respect and public funding for education in general, the ability of our societies to resist the oppressive and bluntly insane ideas of the very rich whose numbers include the infamous "techbros," neoconservative warmongers, and religious extremists is seriously degraded. Academic freedom and its attendant academic responsibilities are relevant to all of us.
Declaration of Academic Freedom
Article 1: Preamble
The beginning of the 21st century reflects more than at any other time in the history of Mankind, the depth and significance of the role of science and technology in human affairs.
The powerfully pervasive nature of modern science and technology has given rise to a commonplace perception that further key discoveries can be made principally or solely by large government or corporation funded research groups with access to enormously expensive instrumentation and hordes of support personnel.
The common perception is however, mythical, and belies the true nature of how scientific discoveries are really made. Large and expensive technological projects, howsoever complex, are but the result of the application of the profound scientific insights of small groups of dedicated researchers or lone scientists, often working in isolation. A scientist working alone is now and in the future, just as in the past, able to make a discovery that can substantially influence the fate of humanity and change the face of the whole planet upon which we so insignificantly dwell.
Groundbreaking discoveries are generally made by individuals working in subordinate positions within government agencies, research and teaching institutions, or commercial enterprises. Consequently, the researcher is all too often constrained or suppressed by institution and corporation directors who, working to a different agenda, seek to control and apply scientific discovery and research for personal or organizational profit, or self-aggrandisement.
The historical record of scientific discovery is replete with instances of suppression and ridicule by establishment, yet in later years revealed and vindicated by the inexorable march of practical necessity and intellectual enlightenment. So too is the record blighted and besmirched by plagiarism and deliberate misrepresentation, perpetrated by the unscrupulous, motivated by envy and cupidity. And so it is today.
The aim of this Declaration is to uphold and further the fundamental doctrine that scientific research must be free of the latent and overt repressive influence of bureaucratic, political, religious and pecuniary directives, and that scientific creation is a human right no less than other such rights and forlorn hopes as propounded in international covenants and international law.
All supporting scientists shall abide by this Declaration, as an indication of solidarity with the concerned international scientific community, and to vouchsafe the rights of the citizenry of the world to unfettered scientific creation according to their individual skills and disposition, for the advancement of science and, to their utmost ability as decent citizens in an indecent world, the benefit of Mankind. Science and technology have been far too long the handmaidens of oppression.
Article 2: Who is a scientist
A scientist is any person who does science. Any person who collaborates with a scientist in developing and propounding ideas and data in research or application is also a scientist. The holding of a formal qualification is not a prerequisite for a person to be a scientist.
Article 3: Where is science produced
Scientific research can be carried out anywhere at all, for example, at a place of work, during a formal course of education, during a sponsored academic programme, in groups, or as an individual at home conducting independent inquiry.
Article 4: Freedom of choice of research theme
Many scientists working for higher research degrees or in other research programmes at academic institutions such as universities and colleges of advanced study, are prevented from working upon a research theme of their own choice by senior academic and/or administrative officials, not for lack of support facilities but instead because the academic hierarchy and/or other officials simply do not approve of the line of inquiry owing to its potential to upset mainstream dogma, favoured theories, or the funding of other projects that might be discredited by the proposed research. The authority of the orthodox majority is quite often evoked to scuttle a research project so that authority and budgets are not upset. This commonplace practice is a deliberate obstruction to free scientific thought, is unscientific in the extreme, and is criminal. It cannot be tolerated.
A scientist working for any academic institution, authority or agency, is to be completely free as to choice of a research theme, limited only by the material support and intellectual skills able to be offered by the educational institution, agency or authority. If a scientist carries out research as a member of a collaborative group, the research directors and team leaders shall be limited to advisory and consulting roles in relation to choice of a relevant research theme by a scientist in the group.
Article 5: Freedom of choice of research methods
It is frequently the case that pressure is brought to bear upon a scientist by administrative personnel or senior academics in relation to a research programme conducted within an academic environment, to force a scientist to adopt research methods other than those the scientist has chosen, for no reason other than personal preference, bias, institutional policy, editorial dictates, or collective authority. This practice, which is quite widespread, is a deliberate denial of freedom of thought and cannot be permitted.
A non-commercial or academic scientist has the right to develop a research theme in any reasonable way and by any reasonable means he considers to be most effective. The final decision on how the research will be conducted is to be made by the scientist alone.
If a non-commercial or academic scientist works as a member of a collaborative non-commercial or academic team of scientists the project leaders and research directors shall have only advisory and consulting rights and shall not otherwise influence, mitigate or constrain the research methods or research theme of a scientist within the group.
Article 6: Freedom of participation and collaboration in research
There is a significant element of institutional rivalry in the practice of modern science, concomitant with elements of personal envy and the preservation of reputation at all costs, irrespective of the scientific realities. This has often led to scientists being prevented from enlisting the assistance of competent colleagues located at rival institutions or others without any academic affiliation. This practice is too a deliberate obstruction to scientific progress.
If a non-commercial scientist requires the assistance of another person and that other person is so agreed, the scientist is at liberty to invite that person to lend any and all assistance, provided the assistance is within an associated research budget. If the assistance is independent of budget considerations the scientist is at liberty to engage the assisting person at his sole discretion, free of any interference whatsoever by any other person whomsoever.
Article 7: Freedom of disagreement in scientific discussion
Owing to furtive jealousy and vested interest, modern science abhors open discussion and wilfully banishes those scientists who question the orthodox views. Very often, scientists of outstanding ability, who point out deficiencies in current theory or interpretation of data, are labelled as crackpots, so that their views can be conveniently ignored. They are derided publicly and privately and are systematically barred from scientific conventions, seminars and colloquia so that their ideas cannot find an audience. Deliberate falsification of data and misrepresentation of theory are now frequent tools of the unscrupulous in the suppression of facts, both technical and historical. International committees of scientific miscreants have been formed and these committees host and direct international conventions at which only their acolytes are permitted to present papers, irrespective of the quality of the content. These committees extract large sums of money from the public purse to fund their sponsored projects, by resort to deception and lie. Any objection to their proposals on scientific grounds is silenced by any means at their disposal, so that money can continue to flow into their project accounts, and guarantee them well-paid jobs. Opposing scientists have been sacked at their behest; others have been prevented from securing academic appointments by a network of corrupt accomplices. In other situations some have been expelled from candidature in higher degree programmes such as the PhD, for expressing ideas that undermine a fashionable theory, however longstanding that orthodox theory might be. The fundamental fact that no scientific theory is definite and inviolable, and is therefore open to discussion and re-examination, they thoroughly ignore. So too do they ignore the fact that a phenomenon may have a number of plausible explanations, and maliciously discredit any explanation that does not accord with orthodox opinion, resorting without demur to the use of unscientific arguments to justify their biased opinions.
All scientists shall be free to discuss their research and the research of others without fear of public or private materially groundless ridicule, or be accused, disparaged, impugned or otherwise discredited by unsubstantiated allegations. No scientist shall be put in a position by which livelihood or reputation will be at risk owing to expression of a scientific opinion. Freedom of scientific expression shall be paramount. The use of authority in rebuttal of a scientific argument is not scientific and shall not be used to gag, suppress, intimidate, ostracise, or otherwise coerce or bar a scientist. Deliberate suppression of scientific facts or arguments either by act or omission, and the deliberate doctoring of data to support an argument or to discredit an opposing view is scientific fraud, amounting to a scientific crime. Principles of evidence shall guide all scientific discussion, be that evidence physical or theoretical or a combination thereof.
Article 8: Freedom to publish scientific results
A deplorable censorship of scientific papers has now become the standard practice of the editorial boards of major journals and electronic archives, and their bands of alleged expert referees. The referees are for the most part protected by anonymity so that an author cannot verify their alleged expertise. Papers are now routinely rejected if the author disagrees with or contradicts preferred theory and the mainstream orthodoxy. Many papers are now rejected automatically by virtue of the appearance in the author list of a particular scientist who has not found favour with the editors, the referees, or other expert censors, without any regard whatsoever for the contents of the paper. There is a blacklisting of dissenting scientists and this list is communicated between participating editorial boards. This all amounts to gross bias and a culpable suppression of free thinking, and are to be condemned by the international scientific community.
All scientists shall have the right to present their scientific research results, in whole or in part, at relevant scientific conferences, and to publish the same in printed scientific journals, electronic archives, and any other media. No scientist shall have their papers or reports rejected when submitted for publication in scientific journals, electronic archives, or other media, simply because their work questions current majority opinion, conflicts with the views of an editorial board, undermines the bases of other current or planned research projects by other scientists, is in conflict with any political dogma or religious creed, or the personal opinion of another, and no scientist shall be blacklisted or otherwise censured and prevented from publication by any other person whomsoever. No scientist shall block, modify, or otherwise interfere with the publication of a scientist's work in the promise of any presents or other bribes whatsoever.
Article 9: Co-authoring of scientific papers
It is a poorly kept secret in scientific circles that many co-authors of research papers actually have little or nothing to do with the research reported therein. Many supervisors of graduate students, for instance, are not averse to putting their names to papers written by those persons who are but nominally working under their supervision. In many such cases, the person who actually writes the paper has an intellect superior to the nominal supervisor. In other situations, again for the purposes of notoriety, reputation, money, prestige, and the like, non-participating persons are included in a paper as co-author. The actual authors of such papers can only object at risk of being subsequently penalised in some way, or even being expelled from candidature for their higher research degree or from the research team, as the case may be. Many have actually been expelled under such circumstances. This appalling practice cannot be tolerated. Only those persons responsible for the research should be accredited authorship.
No scientist shall invite another person to be included and no scientist shall allow their name to be included as a co-author of a scientific paper if they did not significantly contribute to the research reported in the paper. No scientist shall allow himself or herself to be coerced by any representative of an academic institution, corporation, government agency, or any other person, to include their name as a co-author concerning research they did not significantly contribute to, and no scientist shall allow their name to be used as co-author in exchange for any presents or other bribes. No person shall induce or attempt to induce a scientist in howsoever a way to allow that scientist's name to be included as a co-author of a scientific paper concerning matters to which they did not significantly contribute.
Article 10: Independence of affiliation
Many scientists are now employed under short-term contracts. With the termination of the employment contract, so too is the academic affiliation. It is often the policy of editorial boards that persons without an academic or commercial affiliation will not be published. In the absence of affiliation many resources are not available to the scientist, and opportunities to present talks and papers at conferences are reduced. This is a vicious practice that must be stopped. Science does not recognise affiliation.
No scientist shall be prevented from presenting papers at conferences, colloquia or seminars, from publication in any media, from access to academic libraries or scientific publications, from attending scientific meetings, or from giving lectures, for want of an affiliation with an academic institution, scientific institute, government or commercial laboratory, or any other organisation.
Article 11: Open access to scientific information
Most specialised books on scientific matters and many scientific journals render little or no profit so that commercial publishers are unwilling to publish them without a contribution of money from academic institutions, government agencies, philanthropic foundations, and the like. Under such circumstances commercial publishers should allow free access to electronic versions of the publications, and strive to keep the cost of the printed materials to a minimum.
All scientists shall strive to ensure that their research papers are available to the international scientific community free of charge, or in the alternative, if it cannot be avoided, at minimum cost. All scientists should take active measures to make their technical books available at the lowest possible cost so that scientific information can be available to the wider international scientific community.
Article 12: Ethical responsibility of scientists
History testifies that scientific discoveries are used for ends both good and evil, for the benefit of some and the destruction of others. Since the progress of science and technology cannot stop, some means for the containment of malevolent application should be established. Only a democratically elected government, free of religious, racial and other bias, can safeguard civilisation. Only democratically elected government, tribunals and committees can safeguard the right of free scientific creation. Today, various undemocratic states and totalitarian regimes conduct active research into nuclear physics, chemistry, virology, genetic engineering, etc in order to produce nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. No scientist should willingly collaborate with undemocratic states or totalitarian regimes. Any scientist coerced into work on the development of weapons for such states should find ways and means to slow the progress of research programmes and to reduce scientific output so that civilisation and democracy can ultimately prevail.
All scientists bear a moral responsibility for their scientific creations and discoveries. No scientist shall willingly engage in the design or construction of weapons of any sort whatsoever for undemocratic states or totalitarian regimes or allow his or her scientific skills and knowledge to be applied to the development of anything whatsoever injurious to Mankind. A scientist shall live by the dictum that all undemocratic government and the violation of human rights is crime.
Dmitri Rabounski, Editor-in-Chief
Progress in Physics
November 22, 2005
- The original source of this version is the Progress in Physics mirror site archived at the Internet Archive. The formal academic citation is: Rabounski, Dmitri. "Open Letter By the Editor-In-Chief: Declaration of Academic Freedom (Scientific Human Rights)," Progress in Physics, 1(January 2006): 57-60.
- "Professor" is the common term for the highest ranking instructors at colleges or universities. Practically speaking there is no reason the honorific can't be applied to the most experienced secondary school teachers as well, but this is not done at least in northern north america.
- Horn, Michael. 2012 Academic Freedom, Canadian Encyclopedia, accessed 20 august 2025.
- For an opinionated and sometimes amusing overview of the early history of european universities, see General History: The University, by an author under the pen name of Dean Swift. The Academic Apparel website includes a more formal article with somewhat more detail. For even more information and excellent references, see the early chapters of Roseanne Montillo's 2013 book, The Lady and Her Monsters: A Tale of Dissections, Real-Life Dr. Frankensteins, and the Creation of Mary Shelley's Masterpiece.
- Ethnology is the predecessor of the discipline now called anthropology.
- Johns, Walter H. A History of the University of Alberta, 1908-1969. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 1981. Pages 1-19.
- Johns, Ibid.. Roy, Reginald, "The Early Years," pages 33-42 in The Lansdowne Era: Victoria College, 1941-1963, edited by Edward B. Harvey. Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2008.
- Among the federal royal commissions in canada alone that included academics among their commissioners are the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism and the Royal Commission on the status of women and social change in Canada.
- Smith, Jonathan Z. Academic Freedom and Educational Responsibility: A Statement From the Board of Directors of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. 2006. (PDF | Alternate Source). The statement was still posted on the AACU site as of 12 october 2020, but had apparently been deleted some time before 20 august 2025.
- Smith, page iii.
- Ibid, page 1.
- Ibid, pages 2 and 4.
- Ibid, page 7.
- Catherine Gidney provides great overview of how this worked in the early twentieth century in her article "Dating and Gating: The Moral Regulation of Men and Women at Victoria and University Colleges, University of Toronto, 1920-60," Journal of Canadian Studies 41(2), 2007: 138-160.
- The most prominent recent victims of this craven behaviour are pro-Palestinian scholars. The Electronic Intifada has covered many cases over its nearly 26 year history, including those of David Miller and Steven Salaita.
- As noted in the first footnote, the original source of this version is the Progress in Physics mirror site archived at the Internet Archive. It was originally published as an open letter to the scientific community.
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