Essays on Academic Freedom

In the recent past, there has been a growing trend whereby college students are seeking protection from words that they do not like in the name of safeguarding their emotional wellbeing. This is a dangerous trend and if left unchecked it may destroy education in America. Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt examine the implications of overprotecting students from unintentional microaggressions in their article: “The Coddling of the American Mind.” Lukianoff and Haidt argue that gagging instructors from using words deemed discriminatory virtually on any basis would prevent critical thinking and set a dangerous precedent for America’s education system ...

Introduction

The Sandy Hooks debacle sent shock waves throughout the American education system and by extension, compelled other forward thinking nations to review their respective educational systems. In unison, the community around the Sandy Hooks Elementary School, the nation and the international community at large rallied behind the victims of the tragic events. However, one academician in particular shocked the world, the nation and more so, the victims of the fatal shootings (Jaschik, 2015). An associate professor, James Tracy tenured with the Florida Atlantic University’s School of Communication and Media Studies related the events to some conspiracy theory. Parents ...

This paper is the literature review. It deals with the topic of religion in schools. The main goal of this paper is to show how the selected sources support the topic and how they are similar and different from each other. In order to achieve this goal, different sources of information concerning the topic were carefully analyzed and examined. Studies show that people are prone to oppose a constitutional amendment, which declares that the United States is considered to be Christian nation. However, the same studies also reveal that people tend to support teaching creationism in public schools. Moreover, ...

In Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed Ben Stein investigates the loss of academic and scientific freedom on American college campuses by focusing on the ideological debate between Darwinism and intelligent design (ID), a belief that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as evolutionary natural selection.” Stein frames the debate as a matter of intellectual freedom and concludes that there is a serious problem on American college campuses, in academia and in the mainstream press that stifles free speech and discourages research into unpopular subjects that challenge the status ...

One of the drawbacks of free college education is that it is not free in reality. Free education is funded through taxpayer dollars. This shortcoming is a matter of labeling; that is while a person may not be given an invoice for or their child's "free" education, they will pay for it over the course of their life by a small chunk of every paycheck they receive. Thus, one can visualize free education as something that they pay for (Sam 1). Free college education means that each person pays higher taxes so as to enable the government to make available this ...

INTRODUCTION

Hate speech is the free and unrestricted expression towards individuals based on their status in society, race, sex or physical appearance that is belligerent and dehumanizing to the victim and usually leads to their isolation from their immediate community. Hate speech takes many forms, but one thing that cuts across the board, is that it’s directed towards minority groups that have different characteristics to the dominant group and is fuelled by peer pressure (Gould 13). Institutions of higher learning have been plagued by numerous cases of hate speech which have led to violence and hatred among the students ...

IntroductionThe United Kingdom and the United States share a very rich tradition of offering quality education. They both boast of excellent research facilities in their higher education programmes, and have both cultivated a culture that immensely promotes academic freedom and intellectualism. They both provide an excellent environment for pupils and students to learn in. Between the two education systems, there exist similarities and differences in the different facets of education (International student, 2014). The facets include the school system, the structure of the education systems: pre-school, primary, secondary and higher education levels, the national curricula employed in teaching, qualification of students, ...

Essay 3

The article Teach me, but don’t disagree with me, authored by Jodi Fisler, and John Foubert explores the critical social and political issue faced by students in the higher education environment. Fisler and Foubert explained the aspect of political indoctrination that is prevalent in most colleges in the US. Through the use of the website of Students for Academic Freedom (SAF), a renowned organization aimed at fighting political indoctrination in the higher education system, the article manages to clearly explain the existing political environment in colleges, between students and their lecturers in regard to alleged liberal indoctrination. The current ...

ID Number

Introduction

This paper presents a rhetorical analysis of the article titled Teach Me but Don’t Disagree with Me by Jodi Fisler and John Foubert. The primary issue tackled in the article is the protest against “liberal indoctrination of higher education (Fisler and Foubert 2). The role of schools is to educate the students and not to influence their political choice. Maintaining academic freedom among students and school employees is the only legitimate way to create harmonious relationship and avoid strong protests.

Summary

Teach Me but Don’t Disagree with Me by Jodi Fisler and John Foubert started with the message ...

Academic freedom refers to a very old debate which has evolved over the centuries to having become an integral part of constitutions around the globe such as in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure in the United States, the 1996 Constitution of South Africa, the German Constitution and the 1987 Philippine Constitution, all referred to the right to academic freedom in their own specific manners. In actuality, it means the right to research and convey new ideas through teaching without any inconvenience regardless of the ideas being controversial (Encyclopedia of Ethics 10). There is though, in ...

Academic Freedom

Academic Freedom and Tenure

The article is written by Craig Wood and Richard Fossey; it discusses the relationship between tenure of employment for lecturers and their academic freedom. The population of the study is not defined and hence the reader has to read with the assumption that this is a general paper on all institutions of higher learning. The authors are successful in showing valid support for their argument that tenure allows lecturers to exercise their academic freedom. This is because when these employees have security of tenure, they research without being afraid of arbitrary retribution or dismissal (Fossey & Wood, ...

American educational system of learning has been placed the best in the world best system by analysts. America herself has been rated the best country to work and live in the continent. However, the educational system of higher learning has experienced many challenges and in the way it is implemented. The system has undergone major changes and policy implementations for the last few decades to shape it as the world’s best. Though it have been said to be the best higher education system globally, we tend to overlook issues that the system struggles with its quest to maintain ...