Encourages all public and private colleges and universities in the United States to adopt an Academic Bill of Rights and observe specified principles and procedures to secure the intellectual independence of faculty members and students and protect the principle of intellectual diversity.
Recognizes that such principles and procedures fully apply only to public universities and to private universities that present themselves as bound by the canons of academic freedom.
Expresses the sense of the Congress that private institutions choosing to restrict academic freedom on the basis of creed have an obligation to be as explicit as possible about the scope and nature of these restrictions.
[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 318 Introduced in House (IH)]
108th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 318
Expressing the sense of the Congress that American colleges and
universities should adopt an Academic Bill of Rights to secure the
intellectual independence of faculty members and students and to
protect the principle of intellectual diversity.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
October 30, 2003
Mr. Kingston (for himself, Mr. Jones of North Carolina, Mr. Wicker, Mr.
Istook, Mr. Cox, Mr. Pitts, Mr. Wilson of South Carolina, Mr. Duncan,
Mr. McKeon, Mr. Herger, Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, Mr. Hayworth,
Mr. Lewis of Kentucky, Mr. Weldon of Pennsylvania, Mr. Gingrey, Mr.
Bartlett of Maryland, Mr. Osborne, and Mr. Pombo) submitted the
following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on
Education and the Workforce
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the Congress that American colleges and
universities should adopt an Academic Bill of Rights to secure the
intellectual independence of faculty members and students and to
protect the principle of intellectual diversity.
Whereas the central purposes of a university are the pursuit of truth, the
discovery of new knowledge through scholarship and research, the study
and reasoned criticism of intellectual and cultural traditions, the
teaching and general development of students to help them become
creative individuals and productive citizens of a pluralistic democracy,
and the transmission of knowledge and learning to a society at large;
Whereas free inquiry and free speech within the academic community are
indispensable to the achievement of the central purposes of a
university, the freedoms to teach and to learn depend upon the creation
of appropriate conditions and opportunities on the campus as a whole as
well as in the classrooms and lecture halls, and these purposes reflect
the values of pluralism, diversity, opportunity, critical intelligence,
openness, and fairness that are the cornerstones of American society;
Whereas academic freedom and intellectual diversity are values indispensable to
an American university;
Whereas from its first formulation in the General Report of the Committee on
Academic Freedom and Tenure of the American Association of University
Professors, the concept of academic freedom has been premised on the
ideas that human knowledge is a never-ending pursuit of the truth, that
there is no humanly accessible truth that is not in principle open to
challenge, and that no party or intellectual faction has a monopoly on
wisdom;
Whereas academic freedom is most likely to thrive in an environment of
intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of thought
and speech;
Whereas in the words of the general report, it is vital to protect ``as the
first condition of progress, [a] complete and unlimited freedom to
pursue inquiry and publish its results'';
Whereas free inquiry and its fruits are crucial to the democratic enterprise,
and academic freedom is a national value;
Whereas in Keyishian v. Board of Regents of the University of the State of New
York, a historic 1967 decision, the Supreme Court overturned a New York
State loyalty provision for teachers with these words: ``Our Nation is
deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, [a] transcendent
value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned'';
Whereas in Sweezy v. New Hampshire in 1957, the Supreme Court observed that the
``essentiality of freedom in the community of American universities
[was] almost self-evident'';
Whereas academic freedom consists of protecting the intellectual independence of
professors, researchers, and students in the pursuit of knowledge and
the expression of ideas from interference by legislators or authorities
within the institution itself, meaning that no political, ideological,
or religious orthodoxy should be imposed on professors and researchers
through the hiring, tenure, or termination process, nor through any
other administrative means by the academic institution, nor should the
legislature impose any such orthodoxy through its control of the
university budget;
Whereas it has long been recognized that intellectual independence means the
protection of students and faculty members from the imposition of any
orthodoxy of a political, ideological, or religious nature;
Whereas the 1915 Declaration of Principles of the American Association of
University Professors admonished faculty members to avoid ``taking
unfair advantage of the student's immaturity by indoctrinating him with
the teacher's own opinions before the student has had an opportunity
fairly to examine other opinions upon the matters in question, and
before he has sufficient knowledge and ripeness of judgment to be
entitled to form any definitive opinion of his own'';
Whereas in 1967, the American Association of University Professors' Joint
Statement on Rights and Freedoms of Students reinforced and amplified
this injunction by affirming the inseparability of ``the freedom to
teach and freedom to learn''; and
Whereas in the words of the joint statement, ``[s]tudents should be free to take
reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course of study
and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion'': Now, therefore, be
it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That, to secure the intellectual independence of faculty members and
students and to protect the principle of intellectual diversity--
(1) the Congress encourages all public and private colleges
and universities in the United States to adopt an Academic Bill
of Rights and to observe the following principles and
procedures--
(A) all faculty members will be hired, fired,
promoted, and granted tenure on the basis of their
competence and appropriate knowledge in the field of
their expertise and, in the humanities, the social
sciences, and the arts, with a view toward fostering a
plurality of methodologies and perspectives;
(B) no faculty member will be hired, fired, or
denied promotion or tenure on the basis of his or her
political, ideological, or religious beliefs;
(C) no faculty member will be excluded from tenure,
search, and hiring committees on the basis of his or
her political, ideological, or religious beliefs;
(D) students will be graded solely on the basis of
their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the
subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis
of their political, ideological, or religious beliefs;
(E) curricula and reading lists in the humanities
and social sciences will respect the uncertainty and
unsettled character of all human knowledge in these
areas and provide students with dissenting sources and
viewpoints;
(F) while teachers are and should be free to pursue
their own findings and perspectives in presenting their
views, they should consider and make their students
aware of other viewpoints;
(G) academic disciplines should welcome a diversity
of approaches to unsettled questions;
(H) exposing students to the spectrum of
significant scholarly viewpoints on the subjects
examined in their courses is a major responsibility of
faculty members;
(I) faculty members will not use their courses or
their positions for the purpose of political,
ideological, religious, or antireligious
indoctrination;
(J) selection of speakers, allocation of funds for
speakers' programs, and other student activities will
observe the principles of academic freedom and promote
intellectual pluralism;
(K) because an environment conducive to the civil
exchange of ideas is an essential component of a free
university, the obstruction of invited campus speakers,
the destruction of campus literature, and other efforts
to obstruct this exchange will not be tolerated;
(L) academic institutions and professional
societies should maintain a posture of organizational
neutrality with respect to the substantive
disagreements that divide researchers on questions
within, or outside, their fields of inquiry,
recognizing that--
(i) knowledge advances when individual
scholars are left free to reach their own
conclusions about which methods, facts, and
theories have been validated by research; and
(ii) academic institutions and professional
societies formed to advance knowledge within an
area of research, maintain the integrity of the
research process, and organize the professional
lives of related researchers serve as
indispensable venues within which scholars
circulate research findings and debate their
interpretation; and
(2) the Congress recognizes that the principles and
procedures described in paragraph (1) fully apply only to
public universities and to private universities that present
themselves as bound by the canons of academic freedom; and
(3) it is the sense of the Congress that private
institutions choosing to restrict academic freedom on the basis
of creed have an obligation to be as explicit as is possible
about the scope and nature of these restrictions.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Referred to the Subcommittee on 21st Century Competitiveness.
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