University Times

Legislation to ensure students’ rights to academic freedom is unnecessary, a Pennsylvania House of Representatives special committee has concluded following nine days of hearings across the state over the past year. The House select committee on academic freedom’s report, adopted by a unanimous vote on Nov. 21, concluded that bias is rare. However, it also recommends that public universities review their policies to ensure that students are aware of their rights and that those rights are protected.

The committee recommended that public institutions of higher education:

• Review existing academic freedom policies to ensure that a student-specific policy (including student rights and a detailed grievance procedure) is available.

• Include academic freedom policy information during orientation when other student rights or discrimination policies are discussed and include the information in the student portion of the school’s web site to ensure students are aware of academic freedom policies and grievance procedures.

• Provide students who do not wish to complain directly to a professor with the option to file complaints with a school official outside the student’s major. The committee recommended using existing diversity offices for such a purpose.

• Review course evaluation forms, and amend them if necessary, to encourage students to share concerns about possible academic freedom violations.

• Maintain a record of complaints filed under the institution’s academic freedom policy.

• Report actions taken in response to the recommendations to the chairman and minority chairman of the House Education Committee’s Subcommittee on Higher Education by Nov. 1, 2008.

The committee also reported that it had received mixed testimony regarding the political atmosphere on college campuses, but made no formal recommendation regarding its findings.

In response to studies of professors’ political affiliations and leanings that found Democrats outnumbered Republicans in most fields of study and mixed testimony about whether those differences are detrimental to the campus atmosphere, the committee report stated: “While differences in overall faculty leanings are certainly acceptable, the committee believes it may be detrimental to university education if faculties as a whole lean extremely toward one political viewpoint, regardless of which view that might be. That being said, it is not this committee’s intent or purpose to place political quotas on universities or their faculties. For this reason, the committee believes that our universities should evaluate whether internal efforts are necessary to encourage diverse political views on campus and to ensure that students receive a balanced and effective education.”

Paul Supowitz, Pitt’s associate vice chancellor for commonwealth relations, said the report shows there is a clear consensus that there really is no issue in the commonwealth in public universities with regard to academic freedom. “The conclusion is clear,” he said, “There really is no problem with imposition of political or ideological viewpoints.”

Supowitz said that although the University always is seeking ways to improve and to ensure students and faculty are aware of University procedures, Pitt’s existing policies, for the most part, are faithful to the recommendations.

In addition, he noted that students increasingly are recognizing Panther Central as a one-stop shop for answers, and that a student unaware of academic freedom policies and procedures can be directed to the proper resources by contacting Panther Central.

Following the adoption of the report, select committee chairman Thomas Stevenson (R-Allegheny County) commended the committee’s work. “I think any animosity that existed up to this point among committee members was really put aside. Both sides of the issue came together today.”

During the hearings, several Democrats on the committee had been vocal in expressing their disdain for the proceedings, which were instituted in response to a resolution introduced by Republican Rep. Gibson Armstrong of Lancaster County, who said he had been contacted by a number of college students who felt they were singled out because their religious or political views differed from those of their professor.

During the first offsite hearings, held at Pitt last November, Rep. Dan A. Surra (D-Clearfield County) labeled the process “the educational equivalent of the committee searching for Bigfoot” and Rep. John E. Pallone (D-Westmoreland County) called the hearings “a witch hunt.”

While the committee indeed concluded that students’ academic freedom is not in jeopardy, “All this talk that the hearings weren’t worthwhile wasn’t true,” Stevenson said, noting that both Penn State and Temple already have changed their policies in response to the hearings, and that he sees more changes coming.

The biggest of those, he said, will be in developing student-specific academic freedom policies — some schools had policies directed only toward faculty — and that student awareness of their rights will be increased.

“This report can be used by our institutions of higher education as a yardstick going into the future regarding academic freedom.”

The select committee was formed in July 2005 in response to House Resolution 177 of 2006, introduced by Rep. Armstrong. HR 177 required the committee, in part, to study:

• Whether faculty are hired, fired, promoted or granted tenure based on competence and knowledge of their subject matter.

• Whether students have an academic environment conducive to the development of critical thinking and independent thought and that they are evaluated based on their knowledge.

• That academic freedom and the right to explore and express independent thought is freely practicable by faculty and students.

In September 2005, the committee heard testimony on the relationship between academic freedom and free speech from first amendment expert attorney David French, then-executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. It then planned eight days of public hearings in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Millersville and Harrisburg to receive input from various sectors of higher education as well as residents of various geographic regions.

The first two days of offsite hearings were held in November 2005 at Pitt. Students, professors, administrators and others in the academic community spoke, some invited by the panel, others in public comment sessions at the end of each hearing. The vast majority argued for the status quo, telling the panel that enacting legislation to ensure students’ academic freedom was unnecessary. (See Nov. 23, 2005, University Times.)

Among them was Provost James V. Maher, who defended as sufficient Pitt’s existing academic integrity policies for faculty and students. In his testimony last November, Maher told the panel that he had found no case in which a Pitt student complained of being mistreated or penalized in the grade book for political views.

Maher did not immediately comment on the committee’s final report.

By the time the final hearing concluded in June 2006, testimony had been heard from Pitt, Penn State, Temple University, Millersville University, The State System of Higher Education and the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges, as well as from representatives of the American Association of University Professors, the American Federation of Teachers of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, United University Professionals, the National Association of Scholars, and the Intercollegiate Study Institute.

—Kimberly K. Barlow