Editor’s Note. On the recommendation of the Professional Division, on December 27, 1985, Council endorsed the statement made by the American Association of University Professors concerning “Accuracy in Academia,” an organization formed to “combat the dissemination of misinformation” in academe. The AHA national office would like to hear from persons who have been subjects of AIA complaints. Those in difficulty, or in need of assistance, are especially urged to contact us. The statements below originally appeared in AAUP’s journal, Academe (September-October, 1985, p. 1a). See also the November-December issue of Academe, p, 1a.
Academic freedom has been the central concern of the American Association of University Professors since our founding in 1915. We have experienced, and have resisted, many attempts over these seven decades to curtail the freedom to learn and to teach. Academic freedom is vital to the university’s fulfillment of its responsibilities in advancing knowledge, educating society, and serving the common good.
We are increasingly concerned by a current threat to academic freedom that arises from a new organization called “Accuracy in Academia” (AIA). This organization was formed by ”Accuracy in Media” to “combat the dissemination of misinformation.” It encourages students in classrooms to record professors’ statements and send them to AIA, which will determine their correctness, ask the professors to acknowledge alleged errors, and publicize them if the professors do not defer to their requests. “Mature adults,” particularly senior citizens, are being encouraged to enroll in courses in order to serve as volunteer auditors for AIA.
The American Association of University Professors opposes these activities for the following reasons:
- The classroom is a place of learning in which the professor serves as intellectual guide, but all are encouraged to seek and express the truth as they see it. The presence in the classroom of monitors for an outside organization, which intends to decide what is accurate and to publicize what is not, will inhibit academic freedom. Students will be discouraged from testing their ideas. Professors will hesitate before presenting new or unpopular theories that would stimulate robust intellectual discussion.
- AIA’s claim that it can assess the correctness of what is said in the classroom is not only arrogant but hollow. The quality of academic performance is necessarily judged and controlled through peer evaluation by skilled professionals. Supervision of the evaluation process resides in boards of trustees that are responsible for ensuring both accountability and academic integrity while safeguarding the university from undue interference by politicians and pressure groups such as AIA.
- AIA announces that its interest is in combating misinformation, but, in seeking accuracy in the complex world of ideas, it approaches its task with a clear and narrow mindset. Its founding statement names and attacks (with dubious accuracy) a Marxist professor, brands another faculty member as a propagandist for Castro and socialism, and goes on to characterize certain graduate students as “even more liberal-left in their views than the media elite.” AIA’s president claims to know of 10,000 alleged Marxist professors, and he speaks of drawing on rightwing student groups for assistance in exposing them. The call is for accuracy in academia, but the goal is conformity with AIA’s particular cast of mind. We have consistently opposed efforts by persons and groups, whether from the right or the left and whatever their special interests, to shut down classes or prevent speakers from being heard. The detailed standards AAUP has developed for the academic profession, including the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure (endorsed by more than one hundred leading educational organizations and learned societies), the 1966 Statement on Professional Ethics (for professors as teachers, scholars, and citizens), and the 1967 Joint Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students, set forth our policies and testify to our concerns.
Ernst Benjamin, Jordan E. Kurland, and Iris F. Molotsky represent the American Association of University Professors.
