A mixed-mode university course, combining online learning and face-to-face meetings, can encourage students to formulate and express their own ideas more than would be the case in traditional classrooms. This article describes an experimental project at the University of British Columbia and explores connections between online learning and aspects…

We often hear that democracy is not a spectator sport. This is certainly true of trial by jury, a cornerstone of our democracy, which depends on the willingness of Americans from all walks of life to devote themselves to the difficult work of determining another person's guilt or innocence of a crime. But the work of those citizens selected to…

Jacques Ellul argued that modernity's nearly exclusive reliance on science and technology to design society would threaten human freedom. Of particular concern for Ellul was the prospect of the technical milieu overwhelming culture. The commodification of the Volta River in order to modernize Ghana illustrates the Ellulian dilemma of the autonomy…

The authors begin with a discussion of the duality in how children are viewed in both international and domestic law. Children are viewed as both under the protection and authority of adults, at the same time as being rights bearing individuals. Following recognition of the difficult tension created by this duality, these authors focus on its…

There are several reasons why the issues of academic freedom and university autonomy have re-emerged on the agenda in the last few years. First of all, there is the spiralling increase in the number of students since the end of the Second World War with, as its corollary, the explosion in most countries--whatever their political or social…

The number of women attending institutions of higher education in Iran has been steadily increasing since 1989. Growing enrollment rates for women in colleges and universities have sparked wide social and political debates in that country. The basic question of why young Iranian women might even choose to pursue tertiary education, however, has…

Every state in the union has "sunshine" laws that apply to public higher education, and the leaders of public institutions deal directly or indirectly with these laws almost daily. Sunshine statutes go to the very heart of institutional functioning, influencing presidential searches and selection, board deliberations, research and…

Several years ago, Macomb Community College suspended an English teacher for three days because he frequently used profanity in the classroom that was not germane to course subject matter. The teacher's response to this suspension and the administration's response to his actions prompted a series of countermeasures by each party, and culminated in…

The author recounts a tale about impairment of academic freedom that he experienced while teaching in the MBA program of a respected business school. The management department chair restricted the of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals in a course called "Conflict and Negotiation." The political correctness movement has come full circle when it…

It remains to be seen how a task force from the American Political Science Association will contrive an equality of voice for the politically apathetic, but that goal, they say, is crucial to the continued workings of American democracy. Robert Weissberg wonders how muffling the appeals of those actively engaged in the political process will sit…

This case addresses the events that unfolded after a high school teacher displayed a Confederate flag in the classroom as a visual aid to instruction on the causes and effects of the Civil War. Although the curriculum specifically required students to learn the meaning and use of symbols and provided for the use of the flag, and the principals…

This case was developed as part of a school law course in an educational leadership preparation program and focuses on a school's legal right to discipline a student for creating and posting two offensive Web sites: One was generated during instructional time, and the other was completed off-site during noninstructional time. The second Web site…

The human capabilities approach developed by the economist Amartya Sen links development, quality of life and freedom. This article explores the key ideas in the capability approach of: capability, functioning, agency, human diversity and public participation in generating valued capabilities. It then considers how these ideas relate specifically…

From the beginning of the U.S., the political values of freedom and equality have received top billing. However, these core values can come into conflict in the making of public policy. For example, affirmative action can provide substantive equality in the form of a job or college admission to some at the expense of others' freedom. The same…

The right to privacy is a firmly entrenched democratic principle that has been inferred in the U.S. Constitution and protected by the Fourteenth Amendment as a liberty of personal autonomy. It is the statutory right to privacy that has been most closely aligned with data protection as a form of self-protection. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission…