Academic Autonomy Quotes
With the exception of a few theocracies, the power to set standards of education is claimed by virtually every government in the world. Some national governments have traditionally delegated some or much of the power to state, regional or local governments. The United States has been one of the rare exceptions. The words “education” or “schools” never even appear once in the U. S. Constitution. Therefore, in the U. S. the power belongs with the state governments. (Recently with “No Child Left Behind” the U. S. Federal government has been involved in educational standards setting.) This quotation is used by many as a classic example of a practice of many right wing fundamentalist Christians and Jews who extrapolate from the Bible to determine which legislation God wants or opposes. Most Christian and Jewish clerics and theologians however reject this notion and have a more modern view of the role of God in the democratic political process. Both the United States and Canada have very small minorities who hold the Stockwell Day position. On difference however is that in the United States, such extreme fundamentalists rarely enter or succeed in politics.
While this quotation seems bizarre to us in modern America, there was some historical truth of this in Europe. Before political parties, the Church was the dominant political force, and no professor could be appointed whose views did not coincide with those of the church. Later political parties in many parts of Europe did concern themselves with the views of professors. However, America with its strong tradition of private universities built state public universities in the mold of Harvard, Yale, Brown, Columbia and Princeton where national and local politics were not major factors of appointment and retention of professors. Today it is very rare when a state legislature or government allows politics to become a factor in appointments of professors. The University of Virginia is the most dramatic exception where governors of the state serve for 2 years and when a new governor takes office, he replaces all the trustees and the University. These then have allowed politics to become a major factor in some dramatic cases. And the Federal Universities—the military service academies—do allow political views to encroach on the faculty appointment and retention decisions. However, this is rarely partisan in the sense of Democrat or Republican. But Professors who hold views contrary to BOTH political parties are rare.
The governor had unseated Eugene Talmadge, an extreme anti-intellectual who refused to have anyone in his cabinet who had more than an eighth grade education:
Flexner’s ideas influenced American universities, and the movement towards tenure was one of the manifestations; another was that many of the best private universities have as the highest administrative authority the faculty senate not administrators. See {634252} for one political ramification of scholars governing a University. One school faculty senate might have been responsible for an American President running for office.
