Season 2 Episode 44
Discussing the Legality of Academic Freedom
In this finals-week solo episode of Moore Impact, Kasie Whitener explores academic freedom through insights from a December 3rd Faculty Senate presentation by USC law professor Scott Bauries, focusing on what it is, how it’s protected, and where legal boundaries apply.
Link to December 3rd Faculty Senate Meeting and Slidedeck, here.
Topics include:
Photo Courtesy: The Daily Northwestern
Kasie Whitener (00:04):
Good morning and welcome into Moore Impact. My name is Kasie Whitener, and I'm your host for the Moore Impact Show and also the Moore Impact podcast, where we like to bring our scholars and practitioners from the Darla Moore School of Business over at 1014 Greene Street, into the studio here on Millwood Avenue and share their expertise, their knowledge, and their experience with our studio, with our audience. I was gonna say our studio audience, but there's nobody in the studio but me,
Kasie Whitener (00:49):
Especially those of us who teach seniors, uh, seniors are particularly anxious to get those grades in as quickly as possible so that they know where they stand as far as graduation is concerned. So this week what I thought I'd do is bring to you a conversation about academic freedom, which was presented to us in the, uh, University of South Carolina Faculty Senate last week by Professor Scott Bauries, who, uh, teaches at the Joseph F. Rice School of Law. So this is not as a business school oriented, um, as much as it is the overall university oriented, but academic freedom has been in the news lately and has been, uh, some, maybe a topic of political football here and there, um, in different areas. And so, uh, when our faculty, uh, Senate president asked the faculty senators what did we most want to hear about or understand, um, in, in these upcoming, uh, these monthly meetings that we have with the faculty senate, one of the things that was at the top of the list was academic freedom.
Kasie Whitener (01:50):
So he invited Professor Bauries to come in and, uh, and, and present on academic freedom, because it is just me in the studio. I would be glad to take your calls as well. And your calls don't have to necessarily be related to academic freedom, but anything that you've heard on the Moore Impact podcast that you'd like some more information on, or any questions you might have about the Darla Moore School, I'll do my best to be able to answer them. The Groucho's Deli phone line is (803) 799-8255. That's 803- 799-TALK. If you'd like to gimme a call, I'll be glad to answer calls this hour as well. And like I said, it doesn't have to be about academic freedom, but that'll be the topic that I'll be, uh, working on here. The slide deck that I'm gonna be sharing with you is actually posted on sc.edu.
Kasie Whitener (02:34):
So if you are at your desk and you wanna pull that up real quickly, sc.edu, if you go to the search bar on the top right corner and put in Faculty Senate. And on that webpage, there's a link that says meetings. And last week's meeting was December 3rd, and, uh, this academic freedom presentation was delivered on December, uh, I said December 3rd. Yeah, December 3rd. Um, so you'll see it in there. It says, uh, academic freedom on it if you wanna follow along at home. Otherwise you can just listen as I'm sharing some of this information with you and talking a little bit about academic freedom today. And like I said, the Groucho's Deli phone lines open, 803- 799-TALK Alright, so let's talk a little bit about academic freedom, and let's put it into some context here. Like, why does this matter? Why is it kind of an issue?
Kasie Whitener (03:20):
Why is it even of interest to our folks? Why are we even really talking about it? Um, lately there have been some news reports and some conversations around what professors can and cannot say in the classroom and in their own time, um, on their, on their personal time. And I would say the biggest issue of this that we've seen in our state lately has been, uh, after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, there were some individuals at Clemson University who were, um, employed as professors at Clemson University who made comments on their own personal Facebook pages. Um, that led to there being, um, uh, rep, uh, reprimanded. And so, um, that's kind of what has brought it to the forefront is kind of what, uh, the, what rights do our, these professors have to be able to say what they say and freedom of speech. And, and so a lot of these kinds of big terms like freedom of speech and academic freedom getting, um, thrown around in a way of, uh, either, um, defending those professors or indicting those professors based on, uh, this new world of social media that we're all engaged in and whether or not they're presence on social media is, uh, directly related to their employment with the university.
Kasie Whitener (04:36):
So that's kind of where the, the question came from. That's what people were wondering about, and that's why, uh, Scott came in and talked to us last Wednesday during the Faculty Senate. So he starts by talking about what is academic freedom, and it comes from, uh, the, our, our history in German universities. Uh, he used these German terms here, learn for height, which is the freedom to learn and, uh, learn for height, the freedom to teach. Um, and South African universities call it the four essential freedoms. So these are the freedoms, freedom to decide on academic grounds. Number one, who will teach? So who is qualified to be the instructor in the classroom? Number two, what will be taught? So the content that is being, um, delivered in the classroom. Number three, how it will be taught, which means how we will introduce students to these ideas and these concepts, whether this is activities or readings, um, videos, things like that.
Kasie Whitener (05:36):
And number four, who will be admitted to study, which is what students will be brought into the classroom and be allowed to be part of it. And so, um, and that's, some of that is about admissions, and some of that is about prerequisites. So what did you have to have read or seen or done before you come into the classroom? So the freedoms, uh, the four essential freedoms related to academic freedom are who will teach, what will be taught, how it will be taught, and who will be admitted to the classroom to study. And so we started with a conversation of the statement of principles from the AAUP, that is the, um, academic body that accredits the University of South Carolina. And they made a statement of principles. This is goes back to 1940, related to, uh, how academics, how university professors, whether they're tenured or not, how, how these individuals who are, uh, trusted to be teachers at the university, um, will, will be treated as far as their freedom is concerned.
Kasie Whitener (06:37):
So the first of the statement is that teachers are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication of the results subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties. But research for pecuniary return should be based upon an understanding with the authorities of the institution. So what does that mean? It means that research faculty should be free to research the topics that they find engaging or interesting, that they're able to build academic research around, and that they should be able to publish the results of that research. And so this means if you are an academic researcher and you're curious about, uh, the nature of, um, classroom, I mean, maybe you're studying on the, the education school of education and you're curious about the nature of classroom activities and how they contribute to student performance, that you should be free to research that and then to publish the results of that research in the business school.
Kasie Whitener (07:37):
What this might mean is that you are curious about maybe, for example, you're curious about work from home and how work from home impacts corporations, whether it's got a negative or a positive impact. And so you build a research project designed to determine what is the impact of work from home policies inside, you know, corporations, this statement from the A A UP says that teachers are entitled to full freedom in research. And that means you get to make the choice, what is it you're going to research, and then you're going to publish those results without being punished for what you found or what you've been looking into. So that's the first tenet of academic freedom. Um, it's mostly related to researchers. The second one is teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing their subject, but they should be careful not to introduce into their teaching controversial matter, which has no relation to their subject. We're gonna unpack that on the other side of the break. So entitled to freedom in the classroom. This topic is Academic Freedom on the Moore Impact Show. I'm Kasie Whitener, your host. We'll be right back.
Kasie Whitener (09:03):
Welcome back to Moore Impact. My name is Kasie Whitener. I'm here in the studio on December 9th, discussing what we had learned about academic freedom in our Senate, our faculty Senate meeting on December 3rd. And this information is available on sc.edu. Just go to the search bar and put in faculty Senate, and you'll be able to find this presentation given to us by a law professor from the, uh, rice School of Law at the University of South Carolina. As we went to break, I was telling you a little bit more about the AAUP 1940 statement of Principals. The first one was that teachers are entitled to full freedom of research. The second teachers are entitled to freedom in the classroom with the caveat that they ought not to. Um, they they ought to be careful about introducing into their teaching controversial matter, which has no relation to their subject.
Kasie Whitener (09:50):
So what this means is that in the classroom, professors are expected to talk about things that are limited to the subject matter of the class itself. Um, these limits, uh, it says limitations of academic freedom because of religious or other aims of the institution should be clearly stated in writing at the time of the appointment. So in, um, private universities, uh, institutions that have a religious requirement ought to say that before the, the faculty professor, uh, steps into the classroom. So full freedom and research freedom in the classroom as long as it's, uh, germane to the topic that you'll be discussing in the classroom. And then the third one of the statement is, the college and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession and officers of an educational institution, when they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline.
Kasie Whitener (10:42):
But their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence, they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint should show respect for the opinions of others and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution. So this is number three. It says, uh, basically addressing this citizenship, uh, experience, but also recognizing that as a, um, member of this profession, you do in fact represent your institution. And if what you're saying ought is not representative of the uni, uh, the institution, you should make that very clear. So this is just related to the, um, the, the body that governs accreditation at the university. But the university itself has a faculty manual. And in that manual there's a policy related to academic freedom.
Kasie Whitener (11:43):
So I'm gonna share that with you as well. And again, this is in that slide deck that I referenced. If you go to sc.edu, you can find this. It's freely accessible to anybody who wants to look through it. Um, but these are the four points of the the faculty manual. Um, the first one is that it says, faculty members are entitled to full freedom and research that's consistent with the policy we just heard. And in the publication of the results, like I said, just like the policy we just heard. But research, um, for pecuniary return shall be based upon an understanding That means, um, if you're being paid for the research, it should be, um, based on an understanding with the university authorities. And that's consistent with the AAUP, which, like I said, is the accreditation body. The second one is faculty members are entitled to freedom in the classroom discussing their subjects, but shall avoid persistently intruding material that has no relation to their subjects.
Kasie Whitener (12:32):
So this is a little bit different, but kind of the same. It says you are entitled to freedom in the classroom to discuss your subject, but you should not persistently intrude material that is not related to the subject. So that's the first two of the faculty policy manual. The third one is academic freedom and faculty governance are inextricably linked. In order to participate effectively in governance, faculty must be free to speak truthfully and factually. And in order to protect academic freedom and academic quality at the institution, faculty must participate in governance. The protection of the academic freedom of faculty members and addressing in issues of institutional governance is a prerequisite for the practice of governance on hampered by fear of retribution. So what does that mean? So in the, at the university and the faculty senate is part of this, we have shared governance. And shared governance means that the faculty get to weigh in on the things that the university is doing, the policies that they're making, the practices that they're upholding.
Kasie Whitener (13:30):
Um, the, the faculty is, uh, represented by the Senate first and foremost, but also, uh, throughout the, the, the ranks in the administration as well. And the idea of academic freedom in this capacity is that those faculty members should feel free to express when they have disagreements with what's happening at the university, without fearing that they'll be fired for doing so without fearing that they will be, um, that, that there will be retribution against them for doing so. And so the idea is in order to get full participation in governance, faculty must feel that they are free to speak their minds, that they are free to disagree with policies or with, uh, the performance of an administration, and that they don't fear retribution for doing so. And then the last one is that the faculty member, when faculty members speak or write as citizens, and this is again consistent with that AAUP position, they shall be free from institutional censorship or discipline.
Kasie Whitener (14:28):
They shall indicate that they are not speaking for the university. And so this is, um, where what kind of gets to the heart of the question that I mentioned before, which is what, uh, went on at Clemson University not too long ago after Charlie Kirk was assassinated. It says, when faculty members speak or write as citizens, that means that they are not officially representing the institution. They shall be free from institutional censorship or discipline. They shall indicate that they're not speaking for the university. So those are the sort of the two pieces of that. And remember, this is from the University of South Carolina's Faculty Policy Manual, um, updated most recently in 2025. So it's very fresh. And this is our university's perspective. So not necessarily Clemson's perspective, but academic freedom matters because when individuals feel that they can't express themselves internally or even externally, um, then they may not be able to fully participate in governance of the organization.
Kasie Whitener (15:27):
And the shared governance of the organization is what makes sure that we are able to stay on our mission, um, and and to stay true to our mission. So there's a, a, a high regard for, uh, academic freedom. And then the last slide here, the fifth I should say. The, the third piece of this is what does the First Amendment have to do with academic freedom? And this is what I mentioned before when I was talking a little bit about the Clemson University experience, um, with what happened with the two faculty members who were reprimanded after the Charlie Kirk stuff. The First Amendment is thrown around a lot as far as free speech and protecting free speech. And so what our presenter wanted to tell us in the faculty Senate on December 3rd was that the First Amendment does have a connection to academic freedom, um, specifically by Case Typology.
Kasie Whitener (16:14):
So this is an attorney, right? So he's gonna walk us through the legal precedents and things like that. So this is the case Typology. There's four of them. The first is extramural challenges to institutional academic decisions. Extramural means external to the, to your role as a faculty member in the classroom, challenges to institutional academic decisions. So what did the institution do in an academic perspective? So this might be something like expressing concern for discontinuing a particular major or for adding a particular major. Um, those kinds of challenges are extra to their, in addition to your role as a faculty member, extramural investigations of individual faculty and or loyalty oaths. So this is, uh, the idea that in addition, you know, external to the faculty member's role in the classroom, there would be, um, investigations or, uh, or loyalty oaths required of those faculty members.
Kasie Whitener (17:16):
Then internally, there's intramural investigations of faculty and intramural retaliation against faculty. So these are the things that we see the First Amendment, uh, being directly related to in specific cases. And, um, professor Bauries went on to give us some of these specific academic freedom cases that have been discussed in the public and the way that the First Amendment had been used. Um, the first is that the First Amendment is a source of rights and not powers. And what this means is that the institutional academic freedom for public institution involves rights that are simply misclassified as government powers. Um, and I thought that was a really interesting distinction that he made while he was talking about, and he gave us three case, three specific cases, Shuette v BAMN, uh, the University of Pennsylvania versus EEOC, um, SFFA v. Harvard and UNC. And he gave us these cases, um, to help us with hyperlinks to them.
Kasie Whitener (18:16):
And like I said, the slide deck is freely available for you. If you wanna go out to sc.edu, um, put faculty senate in the search bar, and you'll find the December 3rd meeting where this slide deck is posted. But he was trying to help us understand that the First Amendment as a source of rights, uh, is going to protect individuals from, um, an overreach or from, um, retaliation or from negative consequences. But it's not necessarily, uh, going to give them the power to, uh, behave in ways that might put things in danger, might, might, um, endanger or, or make, uh, things more difficult for the academic institution. But he also added that private institutions are their own corporate speakers. And so their extra, their freedom from extramural censorship is, um, the same as any other individual. So that's not exactly relevant to the University of South Carolina because we are a public institution.
Kasie Whitener (19:15):
Um, but this idea of how do we see the First Amendment and as it relates to academic freedom, I thought was a really interesting one. He brought that up, um, like I said in the slide deck to help us kind of understand whether or not that was a legitimate, um, defense for, uh, individuals using their own private or their own, I shouldn't call them private social media is never private, um, but their own individual accounts, personal accounts, um, to make disparaging statements about the university and, uh, or about something that the university has done. The individual academic freedom protects the work much of which is expressive, but it's not speech per se. And what this means is, if you were to write an article or to submit, um, to a journal in someplace, or to write an opinion column for a newspaper, um, this academic freedom is also protected.
Kasie Whitener (20:09):
Protected, um, but it's limited to academic workers. So if you are at the university and you're not necessarily an academic worker, if you're a staff member, this expression doesn't necessarily protect you. Um, this, and it also doesn't really protect speech. So then you get into the question of whether or not a social media post is speech or whether it's can be considered written work. Um, and then again, it's limited to academic workers. So in the case of public academics, the first amendment rights against extramural interference, which extramural is external to the university, was decided in a case, uh, called Pernell v. Florida Board of Governors. Um, and it was, that one was related to loyalty oath. And so, um, the question that, that Mr. Baureis that Professor Baureis brought to us on this particular question was whether or not this, uh, the expression that's an at question was a written expression or a verbal expression. And again, we're not talking about in the classroom itself, in the classroom, if the professor is talking about something that is germane to the subject matter, they have academic protection over that, it's external now when they're of speaking out as private citizens or as citizens external to the university, whether it's written or whether it's spoken and what the level of protection is there. All right, we're in the weeds on academic freedom. It's Moore Impact with Kasie. Don't go away.
Kasie Whitener (21:55):
All right, welcome back to Moore Impact. My name is Kasie Whitener and I'm your host for the show. It is finals week at the University of South Carolina. So all my colleagues, very, very busy helping students get their final grades submitted ahead of graduation. Uh, and so what I decided to do was share with you the academic Freedom conversation that law professor Scott Baureis brought to the Faculty Senate on Wednesday, December 3rd. And this information is available to you if you go to sc.edu. And in the search bar, put in Faculty Senate, you'll find the meeting link for last week's meeting, and you can find, uh, professor Barry's entire, uh, slide deck that I'm sharing with you right now on academic Freedom. So this is all information, like I said, publicly available to you if you wanna kind of do a deep dive. And some of these have hyperlinks to them to go to case studies and things like that, that, uh, previous cases decided before courts, uh, that we'll share with you kind of what the, uh, legal precedent is for some of these things.
Kasie Whitener (22:52):
Um, but we are in the weeds really on academic freedom right now. So hopefully it's informative for you or, or at least, uh, giving you an idea of kind of where the, uh, our academics stand as far as this is concerned. I will say the Groucho Deli phone lines, I'm glad to have those open as well. Uh, 803- 799- 8255, 803- 799- TALK. Glad to chat with anybody who's got any questions about Moore impact in general, but also, um, this particular topic of academic freedom. And we do in fact have a call. So lemme grab that real quick. Good morning. Welcome into The Point.
Caller (23:24):
Good morning, doctor. How have you been?
Kasie Whitener (23:26):
I'm doing great. How about you?
Caller (23:28):
Great. I love this fresh air. Hmm. Uh, I wanna ask you questions. When you mentioned about professors, I was thinking that I, if every profess professor has the same respect or position in an institution like University South Carolina or even smaller universities, because some of them are treated like untouchables and they walk around, like if they, you should do anything including kissing their hand. Isn't it true that some professors can, especially, tenured professors can get away with more stuff than if say, they're part-time adjunct professor just got a job last year this year?
Kasie Whitener (24:13):
Um, I don't know about the, I don't know that I would use the phrase get away with stuff. I would think that in any profession, the longer that you've been there, the more good works you have, right? The more years of faithful service that you have, then there's more of a benefit of the doubt for things. So you may have, there may be a little bit more, um, administrative leeway for folks that have been there for a little while and, and then we kind of know them and trust them and, and understand maybe a complaint here or there may just be a, um, a, a one-off. Um, but I will say, so I think it's interesting you brought up tenure. Tenure, uh, matters as well. I wanna, I wanna get to that. Um, but I'll, I'll go with the, those adjunct professors. A lot of times we are kind of earning our way into a position or, or trying to demonstrate, um, value, create value for the university. And so if you're early on in your profession, you're trying to demonstrate value, you probably do want to be somebody who is, uh, really focused on just delivering a really good product in your classroom or through your research in a way that you'll come to be trusted and, and relied upon by your, by your employer, which I think is true of any profession.
Caller (25:23):
Okay.
Kasie Whitener (25:23):
I think that's true of any profession.
Caller (25:24):
Okay. Yeah. Okay. Also, in, in some subjects, uh, some professors, uh, yeah, people that like what I call the trophy wives of the universities,
Kasie Whitener (26:13):
Caller (26:14):
And thank you again. I'll listen to you. Thank you.
Kasie Whitener (26:15):
Thank you. Appreciate it. Um, I, I, I'll say to to that extent, right, the, um, our, our, our tenure system exists for two reasons. The first is that, uh, those individuals who have, uh, demonstrated that expertise and have created that, that long-term engagement, that long-term relationship with the university, uh, that tenure protects them, enables them to stand up to, uh, potential, uh, administrative, um, shenanigans. We'll just go with shenanigans, okay?
Kasie Whitener (27:15):
Um, and the way the tenure system works now, whether it's antiquated, whether, uh, it, what your opinions are on it, um, everybody has their own perspective. And so freely by all means, um, free to debate that, um, anywhere you, anywhere you wish. Um, and as far as the, uh, professors who have been there for a while and, and have a level of expertise that maybe they have more of a prestige or allotted position, or are trusted to, to be in the public eye, um, a lot of it is, and, and we've had folks on Moore Impact before, like, uh, Dr. Bill Hawk, who is an economist, uh, Dr. Joey Von Nessen, who is a, uh, research economist. These guys have come in and, and they are well established as experts in their field based on the research that they've done and what they've been able to publish and where they have published.
Kasie Whitener (28:05):
So the, the academic, uh, review process, which, um, we had an episode with Dr. Orgul Ozturk, where we went through what that academic review process looks like and the rigor that goes into other people in your profession, examining your work and determining whether or not your work qualifies as high level academic research. So there is this kind of, they call it the peer review process. There is that peer review process trying to hold academics to specific academic standards and hold research to particular research standards. And so, because folks have gone through that process, and if they've been in that profession for a long time, eight years, 10 years, 12 years, 25 years, then they will have established a reputation for really being experts in their field and really knowing what they're talking about when they talk about it. And I think that might be the, the privilege that they get maybe, or the deference that we show them is because they are well established in their career.
Kasie Whitener (29:05):
And I think that's true in every profession. I mean, if you were in a, if you're in healthcare and you have somebody come in there named the CEO of the hospital system, and they just moved here to South Carolina from a huge hospital system in Pittsburgh where they took that hospital system into profitability and patient outcomes improved. And they had this sort of, um, this resume of having been very successful in that other hospital system. Now they come here and they come in as an executive or as a CEO, and people go, wow, this person really knows what they're doing. We're gonna listen to what they have to say. We're gonna try to follow their, their leadership or their example. And I think we just see that in professors as far as, uh, individuals who have done a lot of research, they've been in the, in their industry for a while, and they really are recognized as experts.
Kasie Whitener (29:52):
And that goes to the idea of the PhD. So when somebody earns a doctorate in philosophy, a PhD, one of the things they have to do to get that designated academic, um, uh, credential is they have to create new knowledge. And that is a lot harder than you might think it is. They write a dissertation, and that dissertation identifies, Hey, these are all the things we know about this particular topic after they've read other people's work. And then they say, but we don't know this thing, whatever this small question might be. In my case for my dissertation, I was looking at organizations, companies that go into nations. They, they do foreign direct investment in nations that are politically volatile, and how do they ensure the safety of their individual, the the individuals that they put in those places? So I wanted to know, how do companies go into these nations?
Kasie Whitener (30:51):
How do they make sure that the enterprise they're building there is gonna be safe if there's volatility in the government? And I did what's called a comparative case study where I looked at two different companies that went into two different countries, and I interviewed them and asked them, what measures did you take to ensure the safety of this enterprise? When you put it in there, how did you know it was gonna work out, basically? Um, and the answer in my case was trust that the both companies that I looked at and talked to and compared and contrasted, they said that they trusted the locals that they, uh, brought the business in, and they hired local individuals to do the work, and they just trusted that they were going to be able to do the work and that they were gonna keep the entity safe. Um, so all that to say, I created this new knowledge in this particular space that was my dissertation, that earned me my PhD or my doctorate.
Kasie Whitener (31:42):
And all of our folks that are at the university that have that PhD, they've done something like that. They've created new knowledge in a space, they've demonstrated that they're experts in that particular thing, that particular niche that they're in. And then over time, especially if they're researchers like Joey Von Nessen, over time, they continue to do research and continue to answer these questions and continue to develop new knowledge. And when they do that, they're establishing additional credibility. And so that's kind of where the whole conversation around academics, the ivory tower, all this kind of thing, it's all about credibility and do these people really know what they're talking about? And I would say having worked in academics, uh, that, that, yeah, I mean, they really do. These are really smart people who do a lot of really good research, and they bring that research forward, sadly, like a lot of it doesn't hit, you know, public consumption, which is what we've been talking about with
Kasie Whitener (32:35):
Dr. Orgul Ozturk and the Center for Policy, um, the Economic Policy Center, EPIC. We've been trying to get their work disseminated into white papers so that the public can have access to that knowledge and can have the benefit of that knowledge that our researchers are finding and putting it out into the world. Uh, but in our management department, we have, we actually have, and the department that I work for, some of the best known management, um, researchers and scholars in the world are in the management department. Uh, Dr. Paul Bilese, Dr. Anthony Nyberg, um, Dr. Donald Kerr, like there, these people are really well known. Audrey Korsgaard, she was just here last week, Dr. Audrey Korsgaard, who's our, um, our, uh, associate dean. She, so these are people who are really well known in their particular profession for having a tremendous amount of knowledge in that space.
Kasie Whitener (33:27):
And so, yeah, I think, you know, in my experience, do the academics know what they're talking about? The answer is yes. The question is how, you know, what's the question we really wanna ask them? What are we really, uh, trying to get them to help us understand? So when I come back to this conversation around academic freedom, and should we just let the professors get up in front of these classrooms and say whatever the heck they want to, um, I would encourage you to consider that most of the time when they're talking about the subject matter that they're teaching, it's because they know that subject very, very well. They've done the research, they've been in that, uh, in that space for a while. We've got one more segment on Moore Impact. We're gonna finish up this academic freedom conversation. It's Kasie and Moore Impact. We'll be right back.
Kasie Whitener (34:22):
Good morning. Welcome back to Moore Impact. My name is Kasie Whitener, and I am your host for our show that likes to bring our academics, our researchers, our practitioners in from the Moore School over here to the studio at 100.7, The Point, and makethepointradio.com to talk a little bit about what's going on in the Moore School today, because it is finals week and a lot of my colleagues are busy rendering final grades for our students. It was tough to find a guest. So I thought I'd work with you guys on academic freedom today. And as I mentioned in the previous segments, I wanna make sure folks are aware, you can see the materials that I've been talking about today on sc.edu. If you go into the search bar, put in Faculty Senate, you'll find the meeting from December 3rd and this presentation that was offered to us by a professor at the law school. Um, but for now, I've got another call, somebody who probably also wants to give me a break from doing all the monologuing
Caller #2 (35:15):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. How you doing, Kasie?
Kasie Whitener (35:16):
Good morning. I'm doing great. How about you?
Speaker 3 (35:18):
That's fine. Yeah. I heard it subject a topic about academic freedom and, um, you know, uh, PhD work or doctorate work and how much, um, you know, hard work going to getting that, et cetera. And, um, I'm just wondering, what, what is your opinion about the, like I said, PhD is hard to get, I don't have one, but, um, I've seen people that do that kind of work, you know, PhD, anything is, is complicated. So, so what do you think your opinion would make someone do all that credibility, all the hard work under the table, like joining in on a crazy kind of cons, uh, conspiracy theories, you know, like, like vaccines don't work and stuff, you know, what do you think, you know, in your opinion, what do you think, what do you think in your opinion would make someone just throw all that credibility away and join on all kinds of crazy, um, conspiracy theories that, that these vaccines never worked and that they're just trying to poison us and stuff? You know what I'm saying?
Kasie Whitener (36:15):
Yeah, that's a good question. And I, I can't necessarily speak for, for everybody who's ever earned a PhD, um, I would say in my experience, the folks that I know that have that advanced degree, if they are, uh, experts in their field, if they are, um, you know, doing the research, reading the, the journals in their field, uh, that's the, they'll yeah, express those opinions consistent with that. Um, so when we think about individuals who have, uh, degrees in things like, um, science and, um, yeah, pharmaceuticals and, and medical research and those kinds of things. My question is always what have they been reading and what were the sources of that knowledge? Um, that's part of the reason the academic, the, uh, the peer review process is so valuable. Because it's not just, Hey, I did this research, I, you know, talked to these six people and this is what they told me and that makes it true.
Kasie Whitener (37:09):
It's, well, okay, those six people represent a particular small sample of a bigger population. Let's really try to determine if what they said is, uh, you know, true for them, but not necessarily true for the population as a whole. And I think it's that process that enables us to figure out is what we're seeing or reading, is it actually true? And I think, uh, and I don't know, I don't wanna speak for you, but I think, um, sometimes the distrust comes when people lean on, well, I have a PhD, so that's what makes me write about this. And it's like, well, but where did that knowledge come from? Where did the information come from and, and what are you reading? And have you matched it against some of the things that are maybe in contrast to it?
Caller #2 (37:52):
Yeah, I see. Okay. Yep. That peer review makes a lot of difference. Yeah, I understand waht you mean by that.
Kasie Whitener (37:56):
And, uh, there's so much information out there, so much knowledge out there that it's hard for anybody to keep up with all of it. I mean, we know our, our, our doctors, like our regular practitioners who are in the clinic and seeing you, right? Like they may not know the latest science related to the skin condition that you presented with, you know what I mean? Not in any way to say you have a skin, but you see what I'm saying? Like, I go and see my, uh, general practitioner and I'm asking him questions about things and I'm saying like, Hey, this is what I'm seeing online. Are you familiar with any of this? And he'll go, well, I'm not, but here are the sources that I use for my information. And then he'll provide me with his academic journals what he would rely on to answer the questions about my, about my care. And so I think that's part of it too, is kind of looking for those multiple sources to establish credibility.
Caller #2 (38:46):
Okay. All I understand. Yeah, I just wanna see your, your opinion on that. Okay. Alright. Appreciate it.
Kasie Whitener (38:52):
Yeah. Thanks for calling and thanks for listening.
Caller #2 (38:55):
Uh, no problem.
Kasie Whitener (38:56):
Have a great day. Bye-Bye. Bye.
Caller #2 (38:57):
You too.
Kasie Whitener (38:59):
I think, um, and I, gosh, I really appreciate the calls, um, from you guys, uh, wanting to get engaged. That's the beauty of live radio, which I think is wonderful. And part of the reason we wanted to bring the Moore Impact show to, uh, 100.7 The Point and makethepointradio.com, was so that we could engage with our audience and engage with the folks here in Columbia and in South Carolina. We've been talking about academic freedom as it relates to our professors at the university, and I wanna kind of talk about some of the challenges that we've seen. There've been sort of two big ones lately. Um, the first one that has been going around for a couple years now has been what's being said in the classroom to the students and whether or not students are being, um, unduly uh, influenced by professors who have a particular lean or bend or ideology one way or the other.
Kasie Whitener (39:48):
Um, and so once again, not to speak to for everybody, for all the PhDs, but I would say that our individual, our professors are typically experts in their field. So when they go into the classroom and they're talking about the work that is germane to the topic of the class, they are protected by academic freedom because that is about the topic of the class. Uh, the other thing I would say kind of related to that is that, uh, students are also offered the opportunity to engage with that conversation. Most of the professors that I know welcome discussion in the classroom and discussion begins with asking questions, bringing resources, you know, saying, this is what I've seen, this is what I've heard, this is the experience that I've had. And then asking the professors for their input as well. And my students do that a lot.
Kasie Whitener (40:32):
We read a weekly or a daily, um, email newsletter called The Morning Brew, and I want them to bring those, those articles in and let's talk about 'em, right? Like, you saw this headline, what does it mean in terms of strategic management, because that's the class that I teach. So how does this relate to some of the strategy things that we've been talking about and how businesses, uh, engage with, uh, with their customers, with their suppliers, um, how do they go about doing things like, uh, acquisitions and that sort of thing? We've just been in the news lately, the Warner Brothers, uh, purchase and or bid war between, um, Netflix and Paramount. So that's been kind of an interesting conversation for our business classroom. But those in open engaged conversations are expected to be protected by academic freedom with the idea that individual students also have a right to express their opinions and that professors in the classroom want to hear those perspectives and, um, should, should engage with that kind of healthy conversation related to topics germane to the classroom.
Kasie Whitener (41:38):
They should be germane to the topic in the class itself. Um, so the other piece that has been kind of, uh, um, un under fire maybe, or, or in the news lately has been how professors express themselves outside of the classroom and whether or not their expression is representative of the university itself or of the experience that students would be having in their class based on what these individuals have said. And so in the academic freedom conversation that I mentioned before, sc.edu search Faculty Senate, and you'll find that December 3rd meeting where Professor Bauries shared this with us, um, he identified a number of case precedents that talked about things like being a public employee. And so this one says that being, when public employees speak pursuant to their official duties, the First Amendment does not insulate their communications from employer discipline. And what this means is, if you are in the official duty of being a university professor, um, you are not insulated by the First Amendment in your communications, um, from, from being disciplined for what you've done or said.
Kasie Whitener (42:48):
Um, it says, where speech is made pursuant to an official job duty. The government employer's managerial interest is considered to be compelling enough to override the employee's speech interest in every case. Uh, which I thought was really interesting. It was shared with us last week in the faculty senate, it says, academic freedom protects teaching and scholarship, but the First Amendment does not protect speech made pursuant to one's official duties. And this results in a total lack of protection for academic teaching, scholarship, and governance, which is always speech that's made pursuant to your official duties. And according to the Supreme Court, academic speech is among the highest value speech there is essential to a functioning democracy, but according to this case, precedent, it enjoys the same First Amendment protection as, um, the lowest value speech available. So it actually is not as protected as, um, as individuals might want it to be.
Kasie Whitener (43:53):
So, so what do we do about that? And, and a lot of it is that we focus on how the University of South Carolina's faculty manual protects our speech related to discussing topics that are germane to the topic of the class itself. And then we think about what happened up at Clemson and some of the legal issues related to that, the first check for that, for that behavior. These were, uh, these are professors who posted on their personal social media in response to Charlie Kirk's assassination. The first piece was the university policy, which was something that, Clemson initially followed. The second was that extramural and intramural interference that I talked about in the second segment of the show. These were students, politicians, but really ultimately the university, um, reprimanding or, um, speaking against these professors. The third consideration was, was the speech pursuant to their official duties.
Kasie Whitener (44:48):
They were on Facebook and X um, there was no reference to their positions or their specialties, but those comments were available to the public. Um, and then the last piece of it was, uh, speech as citizens on a magic matter of public concern. That was the question. Um, was this speech matter of public concern? And, and that seems to be sort of the crux of the issue there. Um, so our law professor said he thought that there was a pretty good case for both the faculty members, um, but also for the university to be thinking about whether or not those faculty members should have been reprimanded and should have been, uh, had their employment terminated. That's for them to, to work out and for them to decide. Um, but at the end of the day, uh, the Clemson Academic Freedom policy says that faculty members should endeavor to be accurate, to exercise due restraint, to show respect for the utterances of others, and when appropriate, indicate that they're not officially representing Clemson. That's our topic of academic freedom. Here on the Moore Impact Show, thanks for listening. When you learn more, you know more, when you know more, you do more.