Academic Freedom

Once again Stanley Fish has managed to create a maelstrom among academics. Apparently last week he wrote about a case of a professor, Dan Rancourt, fired for giving his students 'As' on the first day and turning his physics course into something much more political. Rancourt describes this as 'academic squatting' - taking a course that already exists and turning it into something else.

This week Fish responds to some of the comments from last week. He attempts to reiterate his position on Academic Freedom. In short Fish thinks that professors should do the job they were hired to do and not hide behind "Academic Freedom" if they are not doing the job they were hired to do. It doesn't really sound so bad, particularly when Fish uses extreme activist teachers like Rancourt as an example. However, this week he also claims, by quoting and supporting a commenter, that professors use Academic Freedom as an excuse to arrive late or not engage in academic rigor.

Fish goes on to say:
So these are the two conceptions of academic freedom that are in play: academic freedom as the freedom to do the academic job (understood by reference to university norms and requirements); and academic freedom as the freedom to chart your own way, to go boldly where no man or woman has gone before, constrained only by your inner sense of what is right and true.

Honestly, I've never met anyone, even activist teacher's, who took this as a stance within the University. This is where Fish goes wrong. He ignores the need to define the "academic job" and secondly he paints the alternative as broadly absurd. The problem demonstrates itself in the reponses to Fish's two articles. The responses tend to engage with either one or the other option without questioning what is behind either.

As for Rancourt and others, I don't believe the just suddenly became "radical." A very, very brief Google search turned up Rancourt's University of Ottowa home page, which descibes him his commitment to activism. Whatever, the true issue is, it seems like the University of Ottowa knew what it was getting when it hired Rancourt and/or gave him tenure.

If you are interested I've included a link to Rancourts blog on the right. He is the "Activist Teacher."