How Free is Academic Freedom?

ABSTRACT

In the conventional liberal view, the university is a battleground between two mutually exclusive qualities: government intervention; and academic freedom and institutional autonomy. While tensions between government and the academic domain are inherent in the modern university, the conventional view is seriously misleading. Far from being naturally “outside” government, the modern university is a product of government and serves the purposes of government, though it also has other constituencies and purposes. Conventional academic freedom is a state of regulated autonomy in which the freedom of academics in teaching and research is necessary to the discharge of their normal functions, but these functions are exercised within boundaries controlled by government and management. The installation of systems of market competition in higher education extends the terrain of this regulated autonomy, while also highlighting the problem of standardisation in the global environment. It is possible to achieve more independent forms of academic freedom though these are difficult to sustain in the present environment. Independence tends to be enhanced by solidaristic (non‐competitive) relations inside the university, and by the practice of vigorous social criticism.