After a string of free-speech controversies related to abortion in recent years, Johns Hopkins University has adopted a statement on academic freedom thatâs being praised at least one higher-education group.
Not everyone is convinced âAmericaâs first research university,â as Johns Hopkins calls itself, can live up to the statementâs standards, though, given other school policies on âcivilityâ and âoffensiveâ language.
Johns Hopkins debuted the statement earlier this month, calling it the product of âmany monthsâ of work by a 14-member task force led by a professor emeritus and expert in constitutional law.
Its first draft was released to the community in April and went through further revisions in response to more than 100 comments, President Ronald Daniels and Provost Robert Lieberman said in an email to the community. Lieberman himself âvisited faculty advisory boardsâ in each school, they said.
Language taken out that undermines studentsâ academic freedom
âAcademic freedom protects the right to speak and create, to question and dissent, to participate in debate on and off campus, and to invite others to do the same, all without fear of restraint or penalty,â the statement reads.
An academic communityâs members should âopen themselves to the views of others, even when those views are provocative of unfamiliar,â the statement continues.
Much of the statement cautions that academic freedom is subject to limits. It does not âguarantee the right to defame or threaten, to deface or harass, or to incite violence or infringe on privacy,â and the statement calls for a ârespectful exchange of views.â
But academic freedom must make room for views âthat even the vast majority of the community may find misguided, ignorant, or offensive,â and which should be challenged rather than censored, it reads.
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The American Council of Trustees and Alumni praised the trustees of Johns Hopkins for approving the statement.
The council said it submitted comments in May proposing the removal of âlanguage that appeared to undermine studentsâ academic freedomâ from the first draft, and the final statement omits that language.
The Johns Hopkins statement also falls in line with the councilâs letter to trustees nationwide earlier this summer, asking them to demand âthe free exchange of ideasâ on the campuses they oversee, as the University of Chicago and Purdue University have done.
A history of speech infringements
The Baltimore university has faced scrutiny in recent years for how it handles views that are controversial among its student body, led by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
Its student government denied recognition to a pro-life campus group in 2013 because it might make students feel âuncomfortable.â
Even after it relented and recognized Voice for Life, following pressure from FIRE, the student government put it and other âadvocacyâ groups under a classification that sharply limited the funding they could get.
Voice for Life founder Andrew Guernsey talked to FIRE about the experience earlier this year, and how he now advises other groups to not let âyour voice be squashed by a majority that is not tolerant of you.â
Discomfort with abortion continued this spring. A student committee thatâs not part of the student government blocked an off-campus pro-life group from participating in the Spring Fair, as itâs done for three decades, because its âanatomical models of fetal developmentâ were judged âtriggering and disturbing.â
More bad headlines followed, and the student committee reversed itself so the group could participate, though it did not explicitly revoke its language about âdisturbingâ content.
âInconsistentâ with other policies on the books
Samantha Harris, director of policy research at FIRE, isnât doing cartwheels over the new academic freedom statement.
While the policy is âitself a very good thing,â the university âsimultaneously maintains policies that conflictâ with the schoolâs new academic-freedom commitments, Harris told The College Fix in an email.
For example, Johns Hopkinsâ âPrinciples for Ensuring Equity, Civility and Respect for Allâ – enacted in 2006 following a controversy over an âoffensiveâ Facebook invitation – are âinconsistent with the principles of free speech,â Harris said.
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By prohibiting any and all ârude, disrespectful behavior,â those principles negate the new policyâs statement that unfettered debate requires that even âignorantâ or âoffensiveâ views be protected, she said.
Harris pointed to the universityâs âUse of IT Resourcesâ policy as contrary to academic freedom as well, because it bans the sending of âoffensiveâ emails.
âSo does that mean that free and open debate is not welcome online?â she said.
The trustees group ACTA, university student government and Spring Fair organizing committee did not respond to Fix queries about the academic freedom statement and its potential impact on their activities going forward.
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IMAGE: JHU Voice for Life
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