Statement of UNC Faculty Assembly Chair Richard Veit

to the Educational Planning, Policies and Programs Committee of the Board of Governors

August 22, 2002

 

On behalf of the 13,000 faculty members of the sixteen campuses of the University, I thank Chairman Reaves and the Educational Planning, Policies and Programs Committee for this opportunity to address the committee at a time when academic freedom is under attack by legislation being considered in the General Assembly.

 

At a social gathering for my department this weekend, a colleague who has lived all her life in the state said to me with heartfelt distress, “I’m so embarrassed for North Carolina. This makes us look so backward and ignorant.” Colleagues who spent the summer in rural Maine, in Arizona, and in cities abroad encountered news coverage and commentary on this issue wherever they went. An editorial in Monday’s New York Times expressed the prevailing sentiment: “Those seeking to stop a thoughtful learning exercise are jeopardizing the state’s reputation [and] mangling free speech and academic freedom in the bargain.”

 

As Faculty Assembly chair, I attend meetings of the Board and of this committee, where we frequently hear about the billions of dollars that the University adds to our state’s economy. We hear reports on the University’s role in preparing the state’s pharmacists, nurses, engineers, and accountants. These are all matters of great pride and importance—but they do not define the essential purpose of the University—nor, I am certain, would many faculty have chosen an academic career if economic stimulus and job training were our principal business—nor, I think, would members of this Board give so many hours of their time in selfless dedication to this institution if you did not believe in a nobler purpose. It is at times like this that we must give thought to our core principles and values.

   

We must remind ourselves that a university is, by definition, a place where the universe of ideas is open to examination and debate. The fundamental mission of a university is the search for truth and understanding. Its most basic premise is that truth can be achieved—and can only be achieved—when all ideas are open to thoughtful, unfettered examination. All university faculty and students must be free to consider all ideas whatsoever—old ideas, new ideas, accepted ideas, radical ideas, popular ideas, despised ideas—without restriction or limitation imposed by political or religious orthodoxy. This principle has always been true, and it remains true today. It is the essence of academic freedom. Without this freedom, a university cannot exist.

 

Inseparable from the search for truth is the search for understanding. It is the obligation of scholars—faculty and students—to examine the world as it is, in all its aspects. In a diverse, complex, dangerous, and increasingly interconnected world, we must gain the fullest possible understanding of others and of ourselves.

 

As faculty we have the obligation to teach students—not to indoctrinate them, not to provide them with a store of facts—but to expose students to diverse thought, to teach them to analyze, compare, and evaluate ideas. In short, we must train students to think for themselves.

 

It was in the spirit of open inquiry and the quest for understanding that the faculty at Chapel Hill assigned the reading and discussion of a scholarly book, Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations. If legislators impose what would be, in effect, a ban on the study of a particular book, they would limit academic freedom in a way no different or less destructive than the shackles placed on academic inquiry by the Taliban in pre-9/11 Afghanistan.

 

Academic freedom entails that academic and curricular decisions in a university must be made, through orderly academic processes, by the faculty. When the faculty’s considered professional judgments are limited or overturned by others, academic freedom ceases to exist and the university ceases to function as a university.

 

Academic freedom is a powerful idea, but it is constantly under attack, and it exists only when it is vigilantly and vigorously defended. As faculty we urge the North Carolina General Assembly to reject the proposal in the House budget that would curtail academic inquiry. We strongly support the motion before this committee. The faculty are also looking to the members of this committee and all members of the University’s governing board to support us through your individual statements, and to make it clear to all that you strenuously oppose all attempts to limit academic freedom.

 

 

 

Richard Veit chairs the Faculty Assembly, the elected body representing the faculty of the sixteen campuses of the University of North Carolina. He is a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where he has taught since 1977.