When these inequities began to change in the 20th century, due in part to the sweeping court-ordered integration following Brown v. Board of Education and the simultaneous expansion of public colleges and universities, all citizens began to gain access to educational achievement and, as a result, true access to the American power structure. The…

Since the time of the Reagan revolution in the nation's politics--a transformation dedicated to privatizing everything someone could make a profit on--higher education has undergone its own radical transformation. In higher education, within three decades of the Reagan presidency, a corporate model of organization and operation, set up to maximize…

The enormous changes that took place on American campuses during the 1960s not only opened those campuses to new constituencies and new ideas, but also created a powerful conservative movement that sought to reverse those changes. Along with the rising cost of higher education, the right's campaign against the academic reforms of the sixties has…

Despite trends toward greater corporatism and bureaucratization of the academy, some vestiges of shared governance remain, including some level of faculty decision-making in faculty senates or councils. Generalizations about faculty senates are difficult to make because they vary with regard to their level of power and faculty involvement.…

Traditionally, academic freedom has been understood as an individual right and a negative liberty. As William Tierney and Vincente Lechuga explain, "Academic freedom, although an institutional concept, was vested in the individual professor." The touchstone document on academic freedom, the American Association of University Professor's (AAUP)…

Explores the challenges and criticism that some faculty members and the academy encountered following September 11, 2001, and highlights the notable efforts college faculty have made to engage their students, transform the classroom, and invigorate the academy while preserving academic freedom. (SLD)

Responds to the tragedy of September 11 by asserting that the academy must do what it has always done: educate students, generate knowledge, and provide services to campuses and society; its commitment to academic freedom, intellectual honesty, and tolerance is also as important as ever. (EV)

This essay examines the origins of academic freedom in the nation's higher education institutions and explores the current debate about academic freedom. It suggests that postmodernist thinking that questions the existence of any truth may be a threat to the academic freedom valued by the professoriate, who are described as a "quarrel of…

Asserts that in the wake of increasing corporate influence from the outside and corresponding pressure for corporate support from within, universities are allowing academic freedom to be diminished. Discusses how this threat to academic freedom has taken at least three forms: suppression, erosion, and corruption. Describes the historical and…

Asserts that faculty must become engaged in helping the university meet the challenges of the 21st century without losing the university's historic purpose and perspective to an ever-growing corporate mentality. Proposes four guidelines to addressing the problem, covering corporatization, academic freedom, students' role, and knowledge production.…

The progressive gains of college faculty since the 1960s (affirmative action, ethnic studies, expansion of access to higher education, emergence of faculty unions) are threatened by social and political shifts toward conservatism. Senior, tenured faculty are challenged to use their privileged positions and the gains made in recent decades to…

Restrictions on intellectual freedom have existed in American colleges and universities from their founding in the mid-seventeenth century through the rise of the corporate and government dominated institutions of today, and intellectual repression is a principal factor in low faculty morale in the 1980s. (MSE)

"Gay Rights Coalition v. Georgetown University," with its emphasis on social scientific evidence, may be precedent-setting. The case involves not only a university, a religion, and a religious doctrine, but also a protected class that is just emerging as an object of public policy. (MLW)