Wednesday, October 22, 2014

What is it Michael Berube is writing for and what is he not for in his essay "Paying for Freedom"?

I don't find an essay by Professor Bérubé titled "Paying
for Freedom." I do find an essay titled "What Does 'Academic Freedom' Mean?" (2006) in
which he speaks of the idea that academic freedom is being threatened by those who think
they can control that freedom by paying for it.


If this is
the essay you speak of, I can discuss two points that are important--and highly
contentious--that Bérubé advocates in this essay about academic freedom. Academic
freedom, a concept sprung from the Enlightenment period, is the freedom of scholars to
research and teach without control or restriction from governing bodies or religious
overseers, such freedom as Galileo did not have. This freedom does much to assure that
results of research and that teaching the results will be free from preconceived and
biased approaches and results. This is what Bérubé is for in his
writing: he champions traditional academic freedom.


Bérubé
points out that in contemporary America local legislating bodies are attempting to pass
bills that require government oversight of academic hiring and teaching. This, according
to the Enlightenment tradition, entirely violates academic freedom. The justification
put forth by these advocates of intervention from government into the freedom of
academia is that if public taxes pay for public education, then public regulation is
right and justifiable. Yet, according to Bérubé, with current costs, local taxes pay
only a small portion of academic budgets. This is what Bérubé essay is not
for
: he opposes any such intervention. Bérubé explains the idea this
way:



The
argument goes like this: we pay the bills for these proselytizing faculty liberals, so
we should have some say over what they teach and how they teach it. Public universities
should be accountable to the public. [...] people who say, in effect, “I pay 10 percent
of your salary, and that gives me the right to screen 100 percent of your
thoughts.”


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