Shortell's Case Not About Academic Freedom

From the NY Sun:

A Brooklyn College professor who described religious people as "moral retards" said he is dropping his bid to become chairman of the department of sociology after the college's president expressed outrage over his views.

Timothy Shortell, an associate professor in the sociology department at the CUNY senior college, sent a bitter e-mail on Monday to several departmental heads saying he had decided to step down as chairman-elect and claiming he was a victim of a political attack.

…In his e-mail, Mr. Shortell expressed anger at the treatment he received from some members of his department and at what he called the administration's "inadequate" defense of his academic freedom.

"After witnessing the amount of venom directed at me by some members of the department during the last two weeks," he wrote, "I have come to doubt the possibility of any amicable solution."

As my father has been known to say, “You made that bed, now lie in it.”

Mr. Shortell engaged in a brutal, fact-challenged rant with little intellectual merit that vilified people of faith as uneducated fanatics and escapist liars that were incapable of moral action and prone to reveling in bigotry and violence. Interestingly enough, his essay was a perfect example of the kind of narrow-minded hatred and intolerance he ascribed to others.

Sadly, Professor Shortell seems to know as little about the limits of academic freedom as he does about the merits of religion.

The gold stand of academic freedom, the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, states:

A. Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties; but research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution.

B. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject.
Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.

C. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.

Let's look at these three principles as they apply to Professor Shortell's current situation.

A. Teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties; but research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution.

Professor Shortell's essay was not the research and publication of academic findings, but a polemic. This principle clearly does not apply, as this essay was in no way an academic work.

B. Teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter which has no relation to their subject. Limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment.

Shortell's rant did not occur in a classroom setting, and was clearly a controversial essay targeting religion. Furthermore, depending upon the stated aims of CUNY Brooklyn College, Shortell quite possibly could have faced dismissal if he had introduced his essay in a classroom setting. This second principle of academic freedom emphatically does not apply to this case.

C. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.

Shortell would be within bounds in writing an essay or even an academic work condemning religion if he followed these guidelines, but the essay he created was neither accurate, nor exercising appropriate restraint, nor showing respect for the opinions of others. It flies explicitly in the face of the kind of work that would be protected by academic freedom.

Shortell can whine about the “inadequate” defense of his academic freedom all he wants, but academic freedom does not apply to his version of a sociological Mein Kampf. Academic freedom cannot shield people from their own stupidity, an lesson Mr. Shortell is now learning.

Furthermore, from a legal perspective, academic freedom in not a guaranteed right, but merely a quasi-legal concept. It is not precisely defined nor well-justified by legal principles. In short, it is merely empty rhetoric.

Much like the vile anti-religious holdings-forth of one Timothy Shortell.