When is Academic Freedom Not Academic Freedom?

There follows a guest contribution from a Professor at the pseudonymous “Poppleton University”.

Despite formal policies protecting the sanctity of academic freedom, an academic’s complaint was diverted to the Registrar’s Office, which dismissed it without following proper procedures. This is part of a common phenomenon in UK Universities, which allows non-academic administrators to overrule concerns on academic freedom, bypassing any policy-based adjudication.

“Academic freedom is one of the key characteristics that distinguishes universities from other sorts of institutions.  It is an internationally respected set of principles, articulated most extensively in the 1997 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel

But how are those protections put into practice in UK universities?  A recent FOI reveals that in at least one university in the UK, the Registrar’s Office acts as a gatekeeper between academics and their right to exercise academic freedom.  Poppleton University guarantees the right of academic freedom to its academic staff in its statutes, citing Sections VI and VII of the UNESCO Recommendation.  Its policies have two references to how academics can make use of this right.  First, academic freedom can be invoked as a defence in cases of discipline, grievance, capacity, and probation.  Second, an academic can themselves raise concerns through the grievance policy, which states: “Where an academic colleague, as defined in the University statutes, raises a grievance concerning academic freedom, it will be heard by a panel comprising a senior member of academic staff nominated by Senate and a lay member of Council, neither of whom will have any connection with the colleague concerned.”

However, in a recent case, an academic at Poppleton University complained to Human Resources (HR) about an infringement of their academic freedom.  Rather than follow their own policies, HR handed the case off to the Registrar’s Office, which decided that there was no issue of academic freedom being raised.  The right to have the case adjudicated as spelled out in the policy was refused.  To be clear, non-academics decided that an academic had no right to assert academic freedom.

Why did Poppleton handle it this way?  Neither the statutes nor the policies make any mention whatsoever of the involvement of the Registrar’s Office.  When queried about this through an FOI request, Poppleton University responded: “The available documents relating to the development and implementation of the grievance policy do not refer to the involvement of the Registrar’s Office (now known as the Executive and Governance Office) as their involvement is about how the policy is put into practice, not the policy itself.  The Registrars involvement is justified as operationally they are responsible for academic freedom”.  This is simply incorrect on the basis of Poppleton’s own statutes and policies.  They are making it up as they go along.

Moreover, this means that the Registrar’s Office, rather than the properly constituted panel, judges the merits of a case, according to undisclosed criteria.  (We make here the generous assumption that there are at least consistent criteria being used, even if they are kept secret from the academics they apply to, rather than assuming that the Registrar’s Office makes it up as they go along on this as well.)  If the Registrar’s Office decides there is nothing to see here, the complaint disappears without a trace.

How many times have academics tried to assert their rights to academic freedom at Poppleton University?  Poppleton University would rather not say, since unfortunately “the information requested is not held in a single, reportable or easily searchable format”.  It is possible that within the more than 146 files containing information about grievances in the past decade that there are more cases where the Registrar’s Office has quietly stifled assertions of academic freedom, but we just cannot know for certain.

Is Poppleton University just leading the sector in avoiding bad publicity about academic freedom by simply refusing to hear complaints about it, or is this sort of thing common across UK universities?  Maybe we need a league table.  We certainly need more digging around and lifting of stones to see what crawls out.  It will be interesting to see whether the new complaints procedure the Office for Students promises to open this autumn can deal with this problem.  Regulating Universities UK might be one thing, but regulating the Association of Heads of University Administration might be quite another.” [Professor at Poppleton University]

This is a broader systemic issue across the sector.

Another instance occurred in the recent Cambridge Whistleblowing Employment Tribunal. All the academics (whether appearing for the Claimant or the University) agreed that a document regarding the treatment of grants by the Head of Department was a very legitimate topic for discussion at a Staff Committee meeting.

It was in any event appropriate and legitimate within the context of the Institute for these concerns about academic freedom to be raised as Reserved Business at a Staff Meeting (where only the Professoriate would be in attendance and not more junior staff):
(1) Prof Reynolds: “Do they have the right to raise it? Absolutely. Is it wise, that is a different matter”.
(2) Prof Challinor: “… Many academics do regard the principle of academic freedom as sacrosanct. It would be inappropriate for a Director to interfere e.g. demand a change of PI unless they had good reasons. In the context of what we know about Opticon, the information did not suggest there were sufficient grounds to do that”, He was clear: “It would be appropriate” to raise such concerns at a Staff Committee meeting.
(3) Prof Clarke emailed C on 26 July 2021 to confirm that this “is a very legitimate topic for debate in Reserved Business…”. [Quotation from Closing Statement of Stuart Brittenden KC]

This right was strongly disputed in oral testimony by the HR Business Manager.

It’s not just in Poppleton University that academic freedom is overridden by university administrators. It’s widespread across the sector.

(The 21 Group thanks our anonymous contributor from Poppleton University).