In a further case of the internet providing new opportunities but also challenges for academic freedom, Prof David Colquhoun of University College London has struck a victory for academic freedom. It is not worth retelling the whole story (it would inevitably take on the tone of playground tittle-tattle - "he said and then she said and then teacher did and then what happened was..." - best to read it in The Guardian), but suffice to say that hopefully the outcome of this case will set a precedent: simply because an academic's potentially controversial, offensive, or even subversive words are spoken via the medium of a webpage hosted by their own institution, this does not justify curbs on their autonomy to pronounce on important matters.

While on the one hand we can see cases such as these as being merely teething problems to do with the recent advent of blogging, social networking and the like - and there must be some truth to this - the prevalence of such cases, of which only a tiny sample have been documented on Speaking our Mind , indicates a wider culture of unfreedom in the academic sphere.

A further element which is indicative of this culture: as Ben Goldacre correctly notes in The Guardian, the appeal to authority (the Provost of UCL and the law) made by Colquhoun's antagoniser was pretty much immediate. That is to say, the plaintiffs in this case evidently didn't bother to engage with Prof Colquhuon at all, instead putting legal pressure on the university to create the conditions in which Colquhoun would have to remove the offending post, or even take down his whole blog.

Of course, not all cases are as clear-cut as this one, which is why attempts to clarify what we mean by academic freedom, versus free speech in general or employment rights in particular, are essential (1, 2). Nevertheless, Prof Colquhouns' intransigence in this case remains an example to follow.

Alex Hochuli

Bully for you!

Josie Appleton's post attracted a number of comments and was reproduced with dismay on the Bullied Academics blog. The post had argued that the Sal Fiore case championed by Bullied Academics was not really a case of academic freedom, since Fiore had been disciplined for maligning his bosses rather than for the content of his work. In the comments, Lee Jones quite reasonably argues that even if this is not an academic freedom issue, employees should be free to criticise their bosses. While, legally, employers may be entitled to sack employees they judge to be harming their interests, it is certainly in the spirit of this blog to argue that they should err on the side of tolerance. Depending on the job, of course, there may come a point when free speech leads inevitably to the sack - Josie Appleton gave the example of a deputy company director publicly disagreeing with his boss; similarly, everyone understands that civil servants' freedom of speech is constrained by their position.

Academic freedom forms an important exception to the very basic rule that employers can sack whoever they want, but the point of the original post was that not everything an academic says comes under the rubric of academic freedom, or even ordinary toleration. Whatever the merits of Sal Fiore's case - about which I make no comment here - it would actually demean free speech to argue that people should be protected from the reasonable consequences of unprofessional or abusive speech, for example. There comes a point when it is fair enough for an employer to sack someone for expressing views that are incompatible with the job, or expressing views in such a way that is incompatible with the job. As long as state sanctions are not involved, the employee keeps his freedom of speech, but loses his job. It's a hard-knock life.

Again though, academic freedom is sufficiently important that it must be defined generously enough to give the benefit of the doubt to academics and prevent university or other authorities from silencing people on spurious grounds: as a rough guide, it is legitimate to sack a lecturer for hurling racist abuse at students, but not for espousing views deemed to be 'racially offensive'. Clearly such distinctions depend on a certain degree of good faith. Another problem thrown up by this case, then, is the shrill rhetoric about 'bullying', 'fascists' and 'fourth rate administrators'. It is telling that while Sal Fiore accused his university of bullying, a disciplinary letter from the university accused him of 'inappropriate and aggressive behaviour'. This spectacle of accusation and counter-accusation is the unedifying consequence of a legalistic and bureaucratic culture in universities, which is utterly at odds with academic freedom. For academics who feel pushed around by their bosses to style themselves as victims of bullying is counterproductive, since in the end it can only exacerbate the bureaucratisation of universities by entrenching anti-bullying codes and procedures. What is needed instead is a robust defence of academic freedom as a collective enterprise marked by thoughtful engagement with the ideas of others.

Dolan Cummings

It's NOT just academic

The latest efforts to restrict the freedom of bloggers come not from authoritarian governments or oversensitive lobby groups, but university administrators. Increasing numbers of academics are being disciplined for criticising their bosses, or other colleagues, on blogs like Bullying of Academics in Higher Education, other online forums or even in emails. As Dennis Hayes of Academics for Academic Freedom tells this week's Times Higher Education Supplement, 'Despite continually promoting the supposed benefits of new technology, in reality universities fear it. Blogs, simple emails or discussion groups and podcasts are new forms in which academics and students can explore ideas freely without permission from any authority. [University managements] view academic freedom of speech as something that happens in the classroom and not something that is to be tolerated elsewhere.' In truth, academic freedom cannot be limited to classrooms, but depends on the more general freedom to speak freely in a variety of contexts, blogs included.

Dolan Cummings