Academic Freedom; L.E. Read

ACADEMIC FREEDOM ANY TIME a great debate rages on any particular subject -such as academic freedom-and on each side of the controversy are arrayed intelligent men of good will, one conclusion can be reasonably drawn: Some basic principle in the argument has been neglected. Academic freedom has been debated as if it were pri marily an ideological or a philosophical problem, where as, in my view, it is an organizational problem. Whether a teacher be a communist, a socialist, a Fabian, a New Dealer, or their direct opposite, is a matter of secondary concern, unrelated, strictly speaking, to academic free dom. If we were to shift the subject from academic freedom to the free market and then argue that it mat tered whether or not one were a carpenter, a plumber, a farmer, or whatever, we would be on comparably un tenable ground. The confusions about academic freedom may be cleared if we first examine teaching in its simplest form and move from there to more complex forms.

The simplest teaching relationship would exist be tween parent and child. The parent is responsible for the child, and consequently has authority over the child. 361 362 LEONARD E. READ The basic principle in all successful organization is that responsibility and authority be commensurate. Any devi ation leads to trouble, whether in the simplest relation ship between parent and child or in such complex rela tionships as are found in large corporate organizations. The successful parent-child relationship will find the parent relinquishing authority as the child grows in stature and assumes the responsibilities for his own life. When responsibilities are fully assumed, no parental authority whatever should remain. The solution of the academic freedom problem rests squarely on the responsi bili ty-au thori ty principle. The mother teaching her child, assuming no interfer ence, has perfect academic freedom. She will teach the child precisely what she wants to teach. Whether the mother is a communist, an anarchist, or of the liber tarian persuasion has no bearing on the question of academic freedom.

A Third Party Introduced Now let us take the first step toward complexity, the mother employing an aide, shall we say a tutor? The re sponsibility for the education of the child still rests with the mother. And if trouble is not to ensue, the authority must also remain with her. The tutor mayor may not share the mother's views about life, education, and so cial affairs. But regardless of their agreements or dif ferences, the mother should still be in the driver's seat. If she can delegate a portion of her responsibilityACADEMIC FREEDOM 363 authority powers to the tutor, she also should be free to revoke such powers. The power to hire, logically, car ries with it the power to fire. If one could only dele gate and not revoke, could only hire and not fire, he would be in the absurd situation of having to live all of his lifetime with an ever-growing accumulation of mistakes. If this were the case, who would dare risk em ploying anyone?

In this mother-child-tutor arrangement, let us assume that the mother is a devotee of socialism and that the teacher turns out, much to the mother's surprise and dis gust, to be of the libertarian persuasion, one who be lieves in no coercion at all to direct the creative activi ties of citizens within a society. What then? Is the social ist mother obligated to retain the libertarian tutor on the grounds of academic freedom? Whose academic free dom? The mother's or the tutor's? Is the mother, who once had academic freedom, now to be deprived of it because of hiring the tutor? Is the tutor's freedom to teach what he pleases to supersede the mother's freedom to have her child taught what she wishes, This anom alous arrangement would have the mother responsible for the education of the child and for paying the tutor, and leave the tutor with authority as to what the child should be taught-the responsibility-authority principle totally violated. Nothing but friction would result,cer tainly no educational progress.

Libertarian views generally are founded on the be lief that each person has an inalienable right to his own life; that he has the responsibility to protect and to sus364 LEONARD E. READ tain his life; and with this goes the corresponding au thority to make free choices as related to every creative action-no exceptions! Our tutor, holding such liber tarian views, must concede that the socialist mother's academic freedom supersedes his own as it relates to what should be taught the child. That is her business and not his. For him to argue that he can teach her child what he pleases, that she does not have the au thority and the right to discharge him lest his academic freedom be violated, is to place the argument on the wrong ground. Such a claim would be for tenure) not for academic freedom. The tutor's academic freedom is in no way violated if the socialist mother chooses to discharge him. He is free to teach his libertarian views to his own children or to the children of parents who may subscribe to the services he is prepared to render. Academic freedom would be violated if one were coerced into teaching what he believed to be wrong-if the libertarian tutor were compelled to teach socialism, or if the socialist mother were compelled to have her child taught liber tarian ideas.

Further Complexity Numbers can be added to the parent-tutor relation ship without altering the responsibility-authority lines. A good example was the Ferris Institute of 1917, long before it became a government school. Mr. Ferris owned the school. There was no Board of Trustees. It was a ACADEMIC FREEDOM 365 venture as private as his own home. He employed teach ers in accord with his judgment of their competence. He admitted students in accord with his judgment of their worthiness. If he thought he had erred in the selec tion of a teacher, the teacher was discharged. And many students were sent home because they would not meet the standard of hard work he required. Mr. Ferris had the sole responsibility for the success of Ferris Institute; and, correctly, he assumed the au thority for its conduct. Academic freedom was in no way offended. Teachers who shared his educational prin ciples were free to submit their credentials and, if em ployed, to put these principles into practice. Parents who liked the hard-work standards of Ferris Institute were free to seek admission for their children.

Most private educational organizations are more com plex than was the Ferris Institute of that time. Some are corporations organized for profit, in which case the ulti mate responsibility and authority rest with the stock holders in proportion to their ownership. As a rule, the responsibility and authority are delegated to a Board of Trustees; and the Board, in turn, delegates the re sponsibility and authority to a chief executive officer, usually a president. The president organizes the institu tion and delegates the responsibility and authority vested in him to numerous subadministrators and teachers. The stockholders, having the final responsi bility for the institution, quite properly have the au thority to change Board membership if they find them selves in disagreement with Board policy. The Board, 366 LEONARD E. READ in turn, having been given the responsibility by the stockholders, has the authority to discharge the chief executive officer if they believe he is not properly ex ecuting its policy. The chief executive officer, vested with responsibility by the Board, has the authority to change his aides if he believes they are not carrying out his ideas. Discretion in exercising authority, regardless of where vested, is assumed.

Complexity in no way alters the responsibility authority principle, but only increases the difficulty of tracing the responsibility and authority lines. Rules for Cooperation All organization, educational or otherwise, is an at tempt at cooperation. Cooperation is not possible un less responsibility and authority go hand-in-hand. Ex ample: You want a new house, but rather than build your own you select a contractor to whom you delegate the responsibility to build it in conformity with speci fied plans. Now, suppose that you delegate no authority to the contractor and that other members of your fam ily, and any of the carpenters, can alter the plans at will. The house, if one ever materialized, in all proba bility would be a mess. Suppose, on the other hand, that you have given the contractor an authority commensurate with his respon· sibility, and he then tells the carpenters that the con struction is to be precisely according to your plan. But the carpenters protest: "This is doing violence to our ACADEMIC FREEDOM 367 freedom. You are not letting us practice our views on carpentry." The absurdity of this is apparent. Yet, it is the same as the teacher's protest, "You are doing vio lence to my academic freedom," when he is asked to respect the authority of the one who has the responsi bility for the teaching organization. Actually, he is in sisting that he be permitted to do as he pleases in mat ters for which someone else has the responsibility. He claims freedom to do as he pleases while he denies it to the responsible person who pays him.

Often, it is not academic freedom that is at issue; it is simply a claim for tenure. American parents, not wanting communism and socialism taught to their chil dren, seek the discharge of teachers of such faiths. But the teachers cry "academic freedom" and the parents, Board members, and school officials are loath to violate this sacrosanct part of their own philosophy. So, the academic freedom argument is a good tenure argument. It is precisely the same as the "right to a job" argument advanced so persuasively by professionals of the labor movement. It "works," and therefore is used. Enter, the Government This argument succeeds because the responsibility authority principle has been neglected. The neglect comes, in the case of public or, more accurately, gov ernment education, because it is most difficult to know who is responsible or what performance is expected. Where does responsibility ultimately rest? With the tax368 LEONARD E. READ payers in proportion to their assessments for schools?

Generally, this would be denied. With the parents who have children in government schools? These, seemingly, have no more responsibility than those with children in private schools, or than those who have no children at all. With the voters? Probably this is as close as one can come to identifying ultimate responsibility in the case of government education. If the responsibility rests here, then that is where the final authority rests. It rests here in theory and to some extent in practice. The voters whether or not they are interested in education and whether or not they have children-elect Boards of Edu cation. These in turn select superintendents, who then employ deputies and teachers. Without too much diffi culty, one can trace the chain of responsibility in gov ernment education from the voters who ultimately hold it and who delegate it by plebiscite to Boards of Edu cation, to superintendents, to teachers. But the teachers, in theory, have no authority to teach what they please.

They are, in theory, subject to the authority of the su perintendents, the superintendents subject to the Boards, and the Board members to the voters. Simple enough thus far.l The question is: What do the voters want taught? What teaching has this heterogeneous mass the authority 1 It is not quite as simple as this suggests. Federal and State and City Departments of Education are assuming increasing powers and tend further to confuse the responsibility-authority lines.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM 369 to impose? Every conceivable point of view and educa tional technique known to man may be found among these millions of voters. They range from one ideological extreme to the other. Among them are communists, so cialists of every gradation, anarchists, libertarian ideal ists, Jews, Catholics, Protestants, and what have youl What do these people want? They want all things. And the best one can expect from such a plebiscite is the common denominator opinion of the millions, an opinion subject to all sorts of emotional influences, ex pressed in a voice that is rarely clear. Vague Generalizations Our purpose here is not to argue the merits of gov ernment education, but to demonstrate how confusion abou t academic freedom arises when the source of re sponsibility is unable to speak clearly or exercise the authority it possesses "on paper" or in theory. There need be no such confusion in the case of pri vate education. Pronounced variation results from pri vate endeavor. Each enterprise presents its own brand of education, and citizens take their choice.

Government endeavor, on the other hand, results in vague generalizations. All the wants and aspirations, the interests and conflicts, are combined into an educational potpourri, the ingredients of the compromise being proportional to the popularity of various ideas at the moment. Adding to the confusion is the fact that all parties 370 LEONARD E. READ in the chain of government responsibility-authority Boards of Education, superintendents, deputies, and teachers-are themselves voters making decisions not only as a part of the plebiscite but acting on their own au thority, not necessarily the authority issuing from the plebiscite. The government educational effort is a political ap paratus and behaves accordingly. The indifference of voters invites special interests to assume command. 2 For instance, if teachers adequately organize, they can eas ily control the government school system and supplant the voters as the responsibility-authority fountainhead.

The deputies, the superintendents, the Board of Educa cation, and the voters become the teachers' aides, so to speak, helping primarily as taxpayers. When affairs take such a turn-a common occurrence -it is easy to see how teachers resent any voter interfer ence with the freedom to teach whatever they please. The teachers have appropriated the responsibility for the government schools. And with the responsibility goes the authority to manage the schools, even the authority to make the voters-displaced bosses-pay the bills. In this topsy-turvy arrangement, it is natural that teachers should feel free to teach what they please. Interference, from whatever source, is indeed a violation of their politically purchased "academic freedom." As long as education is politically organized, the squabble over academic freedom will continue. The 2 Voter indifference today in America is no sociological accident.

It is an inevitable consequence of overextended government.

ACADEMIC FREEDOM 371 voters, by reason of their natural indifference and di verse opinions, are unlikely to regain the responsibility and authority which the theory of government educa tion presumes to be theirs. If they would end the squab ble, they will have to get education out of the political arena. This confusion about academic freedom, which orig inates in government education, carries over into pri vate schools in many instances. Academic freedom is no more sacred than is freedom of speech, freedom of the press, religious freedom, free dom to produce what one pleases, and freedom to trade with whomever one pleases. There is no freedom pecul iar to the classroom, diplomas, degrees, or mortar boards. Let anyone teach what he pleases, but let him do it on his own responsibility. Let him not cry "aca demic freedom" as he robs someone else of freedom. When government is in the educational driver's seat, academic freedom will always be argued as if a political and ideological problem, which really it is not. When the market is free for the production and exchange of all goods and all services the issue of freedom-academic, economic, or whatever-is never in question.