AAC&U Board of Directors Statement
On behalf of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), we are pleased to present Academic Freedom and Educational Responsibility. This statement, framed and approved by AAC&U?s board of directors, is designed to provide the larger context missing from current public debates about intellectual diversity in undergraduate education. It addresses many of the myths and misrepresentations that have been perpetuated through the insistent external campaign to encourage political oversight of teaching and learning practices on college and university campuses. In particular, the statement clarifies the vital role of diverse perspectives in helping students develop their own knowledge and intellectual capacities.
Self-appointed political critics of the academy have presented equal representation for conservative and progressive points of views as the key to quality. But the college classroom is not a talk show. Rather, it is a dedicated context in which students and teachers seriously engage difficult and contested questions with the goal of reaching beyond differing viewpoints to a critical evaluation of the relative claims of different positions. Central to the educational aims and spirit of academic freedom, diversity of perspectives is a means to an end in higher education, not an end in itself. Including diversity is a step in the larger quest for new understanding and insight. But an overemphasis on diversity of perspectives as an end in itself threatens to distort the larger responsibilities of intellectual work in the academy.
In publishing Academic Freedom and Educational Responsibility, we invite college and university leaders to use it actively to inform public and campus discussions about the academy?s role in both exploring the contentious issues of our time and providing contexts for civil dialogue and constructive inquiry. This statement can be used to good effect in any number of contexts, including discussions?with trustees and regents, with faculty and departments, with administrators and staff, and especially with students?about the educational principles at stake in the academic freedom debate.
Robert A. Corrigan
Chair of the Board of Directors
Carol Geary Schneider
President