{"id":237,"date":"2014-07-26T15:34:36","date_gmt":"2014-07-26T15:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnfrederickallen.wordpress.com\/?p=237"},"modified":"2014-09-22T19:09:55","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T18:09:55","slug":"a-comment-on-academic-freedom-and-the-corporate-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/2014\/07\/26\/a-comment-on-academic-freedom-and-the-corporate-university\/","title":{"rendered":"A comment on Academic Freedom and the Corporate University"},"content":{"rendered":"

A comment on Academic Freedom and the Corporate University by John Holmwood, Jul 4, 2014<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Holmwood’s post<\/a> refers to a recent blog post by David Browne<\/a>, Senior Associate on the Employment Team for SGH Martineau, a legal firm whose clients include managers at the University of Warwick, famed for overseeing fair play and protecting academics’ right to dissent. To quote Holmwood, Browne “..argued that universities face the problem that \u2018high performing\u2019 academics can damage their \u2018university\u2019s brand\u2019 by their \u2018outspoken opinions or general insubordination\u2019.” Browne’s post, “Getting your teeth stuck into High Performer Misconduct” compares foul play on a football pitch with expressing an opinion. Initially puzzled, I think I finally saw some vague similarity, and wrote the following comment on Jul 12.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If one football player bites another then the referee blows a whistle and calls \u201cfoul\u201d. If, in consequence, the referee is disciplined, then he will find it difficult to do his job. If those who discipline him do so covertly, perhaps manipulating video evidence from which independent observers may decide on whether the bite took place, then we begin to see some sort of parallel with recent events in UK universities.<\/p>\n

Truth is the primary and overriding concern of members of a university\u2019s academic staff. To suspend or dismiss them on the grounds that their judgement does not find favour with administrators is to negate the reason for the university\u2019s existence in the first place. Academic freedom is not an out-dated perk. No university worthy of the name attempts to prescribe lines of enquiry, nor conclusions reached, in research, teaching and scholarship.<\/p>\n

To quote from one institution\u2019s Ordinances:
\n\u201cWhere there is any issue as to the meaning of \u2018academic freedom\u2019 in any proceedings under these Ordinances, regard shall be had to Sections VI and VII of the Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel adopted by the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris on 11 November 1997.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve recently had cause to consult the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel<\/a> of 1997.<\/p>\n

I recommend it.<\/p>\n

The academic, as the referee, must retain the freedom to do what he is paid for.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, what\u00a0do universities actually do?<\/a><\/p>\n

And what is it that their managers actually manage?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A comment on Academic Freedom and the Corporate University by John Holmwood, Jul 4, 2014. Holmwood’s post refers to a recent blog post by David Browne, Senior Associate on the Employment Team for SGH Martineau, a legal firm whose clients include managers at the University of Warwick, famed for overseeing fair play and protecting academics’ … Continue reading A comment on Academic Freedom and the Corporate University<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-about-universities","post_format-post-format-link"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":251,"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jfallen.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}