Academic freedom should protect faculty comments about tenure policy and decisions, faculty role in institutional governance, curriculum, academic standards, and issues influencing a professor's ability to teach and conduct research. Comments about working conditions and administrative practices unrelated to these professional functions should not…

Examines whether federal courts and the application of free-speech standards in academia are the proper ways to deal with the difficult issues faced by higher education. The author argues that they are not, and uses the Levin and Jeffries free-speech cases to illustrate this. (GR)

Criticizes author Maxine Greene's position in "The Dialectic of Freedom" because, in the reviewer's opinion, she never really considers the interconnection between community, tradition, authority, and meaning. Proposes instead, the ideas of Gregory Bateson as offering a more contemporary epistemology and seminal notions on which to…

Examines the implications of the exercise of academic freedom as well as potential threats to it. Considers administrative problems, reasonableness of standards, grading practices, and relevance of course content as well as scholarship. (KEH)

In a case concerning the National Institutes of Health and Stanford University (California), a federal judge has ruled that government agencies cannot require researchers receiving federal funds to submit research results for review before release to the public. Such a preview is seen as threatening academic freedom. (MSE)

Court definitions of faculty First Amendment rights and the relationship of these rights to academic freedom are reviewed in the context of a recent Supreme Court ruling. (28 references) (MLF)

Discusses an unsuccessful lawsuit brought by Margaret Boring, an acclaimed high school drama teacher in Buncombe County, North Carolina. She was transferred to a middle school for allegedly violating the school's "controversial materials" policy after students performed an expurgated version of Lee Blessing's "Independence."…

Describes the John Scopes case of 1925 in which he was tried and convicted for teaching evolution. Gives background on the two famous attorneys for the case: William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow. Explains that the case turned into a media sensation because of the profound issues and oratory skills of the attorneys. (CMK)

Discussion of free speech on the Internet focuses on three basic options open to schools trying to resolve the dilemma of protecting children while preserving intellectual freedom: commercial censorware, blocking, and filtering. Concludes that adult supervision is still the most effective means of regulating access to the Internet. (LRW)

Discusses the history of the concept of freedom of information, development of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and its fluctuations. Explains how to file a FOIA request, what happens when records are released, and what can be done to improve FOIA. Sidebars list FOIA Web sites and material exempted from FOIA. (AEF)

In "Hosford," a teacher led a discussion with 3 13-year-old boys in a special-needs class about words with multiple meanings that included obscene ones. The teacher's contract was not renewed. The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in the teacher's favor and declared that primary and secondary school teachers have enough academic freedom…

In this article, the author states that because people are willing to kill us just for being Americans, we ought at least to know what being American is. Yet many of our students have been taught painfully little about our nation's history, purposes, or achievements. In America's original founding narrative, faith and reason work together. Both…

Direct and honest speech has its place, and that place seems not to be at the University of Denver, at least when the speech concerns discrepancies in minority achievement. Richard Lamm's credentials as a scholar and former political leader carried little weight with the chancellor and other administrators at the U of D who adamantly refused to…

In this book the authors raise serious questions about the growing criticism of science by humanists and social scientists on the "academic left," and explore the origins of this trend. They argue that when scientific texts are deconstructed and feminists make charges of scientific "patriarchy," the basic principles and…

Despite the less-than-weighty incident at its core--the display of a homemade banner emblazoned with "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"--a case that the U.S. Supreme Court will take up carries potentially far-reaching consequences for student speech, and for the legal protections of public school educators. From a sea of controversies over student…