Indiana’s Ball State University and Amarillo College in Texas have each cracked down on professors who taught the theory of intelligent design (ID) to their students, under pressure from atheist groups.
While Ball State appears to have reached some accommodation last month with its professor following pressure from state lawmakers, one pro-ID group is warning that campus critics’ rationale for stopping the teaching of ID — “academic integrity” — is the new “speech code.”
Writing at Evolution News and Views, Discovery Institute attorney Joshua Youngkin says:
“Academic integrity,” on the other hand, has neither the pedigree nor utility of academic freedom. The American Association of University Professors has never used “academic integrity” to limit the protective reach of academic freedom. The law, too, has never recognized “academic integrity” as a counterweight to the burdens its doctrine on academic freedom places on school administrators. …
Ball State University and Amarillo College were each pressured by a militant atheist group to cancel a class based on its subject matter. Both schools cancelled the targeted course as advised. Both received letters outlining concerns for academic freedom. Each school defended on the grounds of “academic integrity” though neither school has replied in writing as requested to the points raised in the letters. …
[School presidents] Dr. Gora’s and Dr. Matney’s curious reliance on “academic integrity” to justify imposition of a speech code suggests a dangerous unfamiliarity with academic freedom literature.
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