The Academic Senate of the California State University has adopted a resolution to oppose the attempts by outside organizations that pressure CSU administration to limit the academic freedom of CSU faculty.
The resolution was drafted in order to encourage all CSU campus presidents to publicly denounce efforts of outside organizations who have questioned the academic freedom of CSU faculty.
Efforts of outside political interest groups to limit academic freedom have reportedly affected schools like Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, San Diego State and Fresno State.
In all cases reported, according to the resolution, outside political interest groups have organized letter-writing campaigns to the Office of the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees, as well as campus administrators and legislators accusing faculty of misusing university funds to organize biased conferences and advocate personal, partisan political views.
The resolution states that these cases, or “attacks,” require a public response in defense of academic freedom. Lack of such a response can embolden these political pressure groups to continue harassment of faculty, according to the resolution.
One attack was against Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, targeting a visiting lecturer. The attack was sent in the form of a letter to the school’s administration, condemning the provision of a biased, unchallenged forum.
In an attempt to calm the opposition, Cal Poly SLO asked the guest lecturer to have a panel discussion following his speech. The lecturer declined.
“I always saw university as a place of self-expression and free speech,” Jered Thucay, a sophomore design student, said. “To have that [academic freedom] ability oppressed is kind of a daunting thought.”
According to the CSULB website, CSU is committed to upholding and preserving the principles of academic freedom: the rights of faculty to teach, conduct research or other scholarship and publish free of external constraints other than those normally denoted by the scholarly standards of a discipline.