Historian Joan Wallach Scott has served on the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure since 1993. She was committee chair from 1999 until this past June, when she became a consultant to the committee. To mark her transition from chair to consultant, "Academe" asked her to participate in an interview about her experience with the…

Districts are paying scant attention to the provision of federal education law that allows students in low-performing schools to transfer elsewhere, though more are providing children with the supplemental services to which they are entitled. New data submitted to the federal government show that eligible students who transferred to a…

Youth in state custody, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, have federal and state constitutional and statutory rights. These rights guarantee a young person safety in their placement as well as freedom from deprivation of their liberty interest. Many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth have these rights…

In this article, the author features the Middle College High School (MCHS), which grants teenagers a judicious mix of freedom and structure as it propels them toward adulthood. MCHS allows students to take courses at LaGuardia Community College, and is also piloting a program in which students stay a thirteenth year and graduate with an Associate…

Graves (2005) suggested that academic freedom might impede efforts to improve institutional performance and achieve the goals set for learning outcomes, cost efficiency, and preparing students for the workplace. The author's initial response to threats to academic freedom and calls for efficiency is to bristle, because he views these as threats to…

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether standards-based school reform is an acceptable strategy for achieving a politically legitimate school system according to a principle of personal liberty. First, it briefly describes the purpose and implementation of standards-based school reform in the U.S. It then considers the ramifications of…

In this article, the author discusses issues raised in the Academic Bill of Rights, which he defines as a lack of intellectual diversity on faculties and in curricula, abusive use of the classroom for nonacademic agendas, and lack of equity in the distribution of student activities funds. These issues drive his call for reform in the…

Last year's Australian sedition laws were the latest and most controversial installment in a raft of legislation since the war on terror was announced five years ago. In this article, the author argues that, while some security measures were necessary, the recent laws have far exceeded the modest scale of the threats that confront Australians. He…

As the concern over liberal bias has become more widely broadcast with regard to the subject of academic freedom, it does not come as a surprise that there should be some faculty members who either redress or else shy away from engaging in dialogue that might be considered to be controversial or invite debate with its discussion. This article…

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) is accepted in nearly all countries in the world although the idea of children's rights is still much discussed. The author distinguishes two perspectives for interpreting the children's rights' convention correlated with different child images. On the one hand there is the "caretaker…

This volume of transformed research utilizes an activist approach to examine the notion that nothing is apolitical. Research projects themselves are critically examined for power orientations, even as they are used to address curricular problems and educational or societal issues. Philosophical perspectives that have facilitated an understanding…

In this article, the author discusses the parallels between the dispositions assessments of today's aspiring teachers and the evaluations of teachers' mental hygiene and personality that began in the 1940s and continued for two decades. The author also talks about the history of teacher attitude adjustment. She states that the screening of…

This study examines teacher perceptions of academic freedom and how these perceptions relate to the teaching of controversial issues. By drawing on the literature of the field and recent research, we describe threats, challenges, and variables at work that have led to the decline of academic freedom. We then explore the imperative of academic…

America evolved out of the principles of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, suggesting that individuals could govern themselves and that people were "endowed" with "unalienable rights" such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these principles, Americans would continue to work on forming a more perfect Union, by…

Very few elementary public school teachers in the United States expose their students to religion and spirituality in an in-depth way. Even when they have the necessary knowledge base, they shy away from so dangerous an enterprise. They might fear provoking a challenge from parents who are irreligious and are shocked to find religion being…