Scholars and practitioners of learning outcomes assessment widely recognize the importance of faculty engagement with the planning and implementation of assessment activities. Yet garnering participation by the majority of faculty has remained a significant challenge due in part to faculty concerns over the purposes of assessment, the value that it holds, and the costs of its implementation. In this paper I consider another claim that contributes to faculty resistance: that learning outcomes assessment is a fundamental abridgment of academic freedom. Granted, assessment activities can be imposed in ways that violate faculty rights, but such a consequence is not inevitable. Faculty control of the curriculum and effective shared governance set the stage for assessment that supports and builds on the faculty's ongoing efforts while protecting their historic and essential right to academic freedom.