Thread by @drlucymichael

Academic freedom is designed to protect academic research, teaching and dissemination, even in new and creative ways, but academics are expected to uphold the integrity of academic research in order to benefit from it.

https://twitter.com/EamonnVIDF/status/1357011098751401990

Ireland actually has a solid protection for academic freedom established in legislation, through our Higher Education Act. It's stronger than in much of Europe, and particularly stronger than in the UK. But there are some limits to when academic freedom applies.

Here's the basics of Academic Freedom.
•Universities and society benefit from diversity of views
•Teaching, research, dissemination is interpreted widely and creatively for the maximum protection
•Academics should uphold professional standards in their work

When might academic freedom not apply, e.g.?
If work is unethical e.g. not going through university ethics committees or defying constraints. If citing work as scientific peer reviewed work, which is not. If activities impinging on other constitutionally protected rights.

There is explicit legislative protection for Academic Freedom thanks to the Universities Act 1997. This is wider than the legislative protection in many EU states, since it explicitly protects activities outside the University.

In Ireland, academic freedom was acknowledged in the Universities Act (1997) which stated that a university, in performing its function shall: “…have the right and responsibility to preserve the traditional principles of academic freedom in the conduct of its internal affairs”.

The obligations of a university to safeguard this right are clear: “…if, in the interpretation of this Act, there is a doubt regarding the meaning of any provision, a construction that would promote that ethos and those traditions and principles shall be preferred to a

construction that would not so promote”.
At the level of the individual, the Act is specific in stating that
“A member of the academic staff of a university shall have the freedom, within the law, in his or her teaching, research and any other activities either in or outside

the university, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas and to state controversial or unpopular opinions and shall not be disadvantaged, or subject to less favourable treatment by the university, for the exercise of that freedom”.

The fact that there is no constitutional protection in Ireland for academic freedom should not prevent it being strongly defended, but it must be put into the context in which constitutional rights must be defended, and there has been no case law on the extent to which

academic freedom might impinge on those rights. Academic freedom is not wider than freedom of speech, nor is it synonymous with it, and it does not attract the same protections as freedom of speech by way of constitutional protection.

Freedom of speech is a generic freedom granted to all, to express their opinions and beliefs by whatever method they deem appropriate, on any subject that they may choose, to all other people, but for no particular purpose. That's not the same as academic freedom.

Academic freedom, by contrast, is a *professional* freedom granted to a few, chosen on the basis of their professional competence, to firstly: express their informed opinions only on subjects in which they have accredited expertise, just to a group of individuals chosen on the

basis of academic criteria, in order to educate them; and secondly to undertake research to create new knowledge, freely disseminated to their students and the wider academic community.

The Irish legislation goes further than this statement in protecting wider activities, but I think the professional freedom element is the bit to capture.

Academic Freedom – the UCD Context
“This freedom, within the law, to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinions was enshrined in Statute 6 (Chapter 1) of University College Dublin3. This statute (Chapter 6) also decrees that the control of the academic affairs

of the University is subject to the traditional principles of academic freedom.” [Excerpt from Statement on Academic Freedom, Final Report of the Academic Council Task Force, UCD, November 2011]

“The 1998 Policy Statement of the International Association of Universities (of which UCD is a member) on Academic Freedom, University Autonomy and Social Responsibility4 recalls the three indissociable principles for which every university should stand,

namely: the right to pursue knowledge for its own sake and to follow wherever the search for truth may lead; the tolerance of divergent opinion and freedom from political interference; the obligation as social institutions to promote, through teaching and research, the principles

of freedom and justice, of human dignity and solidarity, and to develop mutually material and moral aid on an international level. It defines the principles of academic freedom as the freedom for members of the academic community – scholars, teachers and students – to follow

their scholarly activities within a framework determined by that community in respect of ethical rules and international standards, and without outside pressure.” [Excerpt from Statement on Academic Freedom, Final Report of the Academic Council Task Force, UCD, November 2011]

In March/April 2020, there was a successful petition in UCD to stall a revision of the Academic Freedom statement, which would address a “risk of tension” between academic freedom and “the strategic imperative to internationalise higher education”. insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/0…

Academics are understandably nervous about institutional attempts to foreclose on Academic Freedom, which is already the subject of much comment in Irish academia due to the effects of resource reallocation and reduction, performance management, reputational concerns and

prioritisation of some areas or forms of scholarship. Moreover, across Europe there have been severe threats to universities in Hungary, Italy and elsewhere from governments of those countries, and this has made academic freedom more urgently and staunchly defended across Europe.

I, like many academic-activists involved in social justice work, get very nervous around impingements on academic freedom, like the UK and US attempts recently to curtail the use of Critical Race Theory.

Esteemed colleagues of mine have had their jobs threatened because of extensively evidenced criticism of government bodies and agencies, including key inquiries. Threats to academic freedom are not only overseas, but on this island too.

In this defence of academic freedom, I find myself entirely unable to defend academics who *choose* to put aside the fundamentals of integrity, evidence, peer review, and transparency to grift on conspiracy theories particularly promoting dangerous lies in a pandemic.

Thanks for reading - and do go back and read @EamonnVIDF 's thread on Dolores Cahill's activities in full in light of the above.

And remember folks, freedom of speech says you can say what you want (mostly), but academic freedom says you can keep your job while you say it.

Yes, I am a geek about academic freedom. Blame my years defending colleagues under the same principles as part of my professional academic trade union.