Sarah Lawrence College has a proud history of commitment to the principles of academic freedom and responsibility. In the statement proposed by the Board of Trustees and adopted by the faculty in 1938, the Board of Trustees wrote:
"The Board of Trustees recognizes that the wholesome functioning of an educational institution depends on freedom of thought and speech. It pledges itself to maintain and protect the right of the teacher to deal candidly with the controversial questions that may arise in the course of his relations with students but it expects the teacher to distinguish such candor from indoctrination. It expects the teacher to develop the art of forming independent opinions in the student and to give a fair emphasis to opinions contrary to his own."
After the College came under attack in the fall of 1951 for “harboring subversives,” the Board of Trustees issued a statement in January 1952 reaffirming the College’s commitment to academic freedom:
"An educational institution must teach its students to think for themselves by giving them the knowledge on which to base judgments. The teaching faculty of Sarah Lawrence College is responsible for the development in students of intellectual independence and maturity. In carrying out this responsibility faculty members are expected to deal candidly and honestly with controversial questions. Teachers who meet the test of candor, honesty, and scholarly integrity may not be deprived of any rights they hold as citizens of this country, including the right to belong to any legal political organization of their own choosing.
It is a principle accepted by the Faculty, the President and Trustees alike that there is to be no indoctrination of students with a political, philosophical or religious dogma. No person, therefore, who takes his intellectual orders from an outside authority, whether communist or any other, could be given or could retain the responsibility of membership in the Sarah Lawrence faculty."
In a January 15, 1952 letter to the Students, Faculty and Alumnae Council, then President Harold Taylor and Chairperson of the Board of Trustees Harrison Tweed added the following:
"It is an essential part of good educational policy that a college ask for no orthodoxy in its teachers as to religion, politics, or philosophical theory. If it were otherwise, teaching would be done not by the faculty but by the governing board of the institution. The teacher would be a mouthpiece for the preconceived philosophy of the institution rather than a seeker of truth about problems in his field of learning."
In the conclusion of the same letter, President Taylor and Chairperson Tweed wrote:
"As anyone who has attended Sarah Lawrence College already knows, the idea that a member of the faculty should take intellectual or political dictation from any quarter is alien to everything Sarah Lawrence stands for. Prejudiced or politically inspired teaching would quickly reveal itself, and would be rejected by the students and by the whole College."
The support of President Taylor and the Board of Trustees for the faculty of the College never wavered, even as eighteen current and former faculty members were accused of being Communists or were brought before the Jenner Senate Subcommittee investigating subversive activities. In April 1952 the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) gave President Taylor an award for his “powerful effort on behalf of academic freedom.”
Helping students to think and act independently is at the core of the mission of Sarah Lawrence College. It is a goal that requires robust protections of academic freedom. The College must be a place where both faculty and students feel free to explore and debate ideas and theories, freed from the constraints of mandated ideologies, beliefs, and practices. This process may produce discomfort for those whose cherished beliefs are challenged. But such challenges, and the ensuing respectful dialogues, are at the core of the academic mission.
In the classroom, students must have the freedom to learn and to express their full range of opinions on social and political questions, without fear of reprisal from the institution or from authorities outside the College community. Our classrooms must be spaces where faculty and students feel free to speak their minds, in pursuit of free intellectual exploration and discovery. Students have the right to express diverse and contradictory opinions about the material presented in the class, but this right comes with the obligation to engage with and learn the material presented by the professor and for meeting academic standards imposed by the professor as well as the College. In turn, the professor has the right to determine which material will be covered in the course, how class time is used, and to develop and enforce academic standards, but this right comes with the responsibility to respect differing opinions presented by their students, and not to grade students differently based on differing opinions. Professors also have the responsibility to respect the privacy of students in the classroom, and not to disclose student opinions outside without explicit student permission. All of this ensures that the classroom remains the space of discursive freedom that is necessary for free intellectual inquiry.
The academic freedom of faculty members includes the freedom to express their views on academic materials and discussions in the classroom and in the conduct of research and on matters having to do with their institution and its policies, subject to the satisfactory performance of other academic duties and compliance with College policies, applicable laws, and academic and professional ethics. Academic freedom provides the right to do so even if their views are in conflict with one or another received wisdom. Further, faculty should not be impeded from teaching or researching particular subjects because of the preference and interests of the institution, its donors, political figures or other entities.
The kind of broad liberal education exemplified by Sarah Lawrence College faculty requires developing critical ability in one’s students and an understanding of the methods for resolving disputes within the discipline; good research requires permitting the expression of contrary views in order that the evidence for and against a hypothesis can be weighed responsibly. In the case of institutional matters, grounds for thinking an institutional policy desirable or undesirable must be heard and assessed if the community is to have confidence that its policies are appropriate.
In the case of issues of public interest generally, the faculty member must be free to exercise the rights accorded to all citizens and members of the public free from institutional censorship or discipline. However, faculty must be clear, when expressing such opinions, that they are doing so in their capacities as private citizens and not speaking on behalf of the institution.
Faculty are urged to bring concerns about academic freedom to the Committee on Academic Freedom — a committee of peer faculty members — before making a formal complaint.
The College has affirmed, and continues to affirm, the tenets of academic freedom articulated in the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure with 1970 Interpretive Comment of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
