EDITORIAL – Academic freedom bill restricts profs’ rights

Don’t like something your professor said in class? Sue ’em.

Well, maybe it’s not that easy…. Don’t like something your professor said in class? Sue ’em.

Well, maybe it’s not that easy. But a bill that made it past the Florida House Choice and Innovation committee last week might make that possibility a reality. The Academic Freedom Bill of Rights — and if it has the word “freedom” in the title, it must be good — aims to allow students to appeal their grades legally if they believe they were given low grades based on their political or religious beliefs.

In an article in the University of Florida’s student newspaper, the Independent Daily Alligator, university administrators — in a lovely show of backbone — called the bill redundant, considering that its students can already appeal grades with which they disagree.

All of this is part of a burgeoning movement to allow states to intrude on classrooms, all in the name of academic freedom. True academic freedom means that universities can be entities unto themselves — without the fear of Big Brother rapping them on the knuckles with a state-approved ruler.

Bills such as the one introduced in Florida are being considered in many other states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania. Fortunately for us, the Pennsylvania general assembly must have had its morning cup of sanity when it drafted its bill, since it just calls for a committee to investigate whether students and faculty are being treated fairly at state-owned and state-related universities.

While, if enacted, the ensuing investigation could lead to the state sticking its state-y nose where it doesn’t belong, chances are it’ll just lead to a harmless report.

But back to Florida for a minute: Giving legal standing to disgruntled students will just bring forth unnecessary lawsuits and infringe on professors’ ability to teach. Although professors should try to teach both sides of an issue, some issues are really just one-sided.

Should, for instance, biology professors be forced to introduce creationism as part of their evolution classes? Well, the Supreme Court already nixed that idea in 1987, so that’s probably a no-go. Then there’s the thornier issue of introducing intelligent design — the idea that life is too complex to have evolved independent of some higher force — as a counter-theory to evolution. The Florida bill’s sponsor cited failure to introduce such a counterargument as an example of when a student could sue, which would lead to a world of trouble, considering that many scientists think intelligent design is bunk.

This is not to say that there shouldn’t be a healthy marketplace of ideas. But litigation is certainly not how to foster such a thing. Professors should give good grades to students who show a comprehension of the material, who do the work and who base their arguments on facts, not just amorphous beliefs. And if students want to appeal their grades, they should tell it to the dean, not the judge.

The law, no matter how carefully worded, cannot distinguish between a good student who’s been graded unfairly and a bad student who feels that his belief that the universe emerged from a Cracker Jack box should have been given equal time. Such designations are the province of the university and academics dedicated to studying the fields in question, not the courtroom.