AAUP Will Review the Impact of 9/11 on Academic Freedom

By SHARON WALSH

Washington

The American Association of University Professors, disturbed by an array of recent events that may limit academic freedom, has created a committee to review and analyze incidents in the wake of the attacks on September 11 of last year. Immediately after September 11, there appeared to be little effect on academic freedom, but in recent months, that has changed, Jonathan Knight, associate secretary of the AAUP, said Tuesday.

Areas the committee will study include responses by academic leaders and politicians to controversial speech and teaching; restrictions proposed by the federal government on university research that is considered sensitive but not classified, particularly in microbiology and bioterrorism; renewed concerns about conducting classified research at universities; and restrictions on foreign scholars and students.

Individual cases that have caused concern to the AAUP include the controversy over the study of a book about the Koran at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (see an article from The Chronicle, August 20), the denunciation by some students and religious leaders of two Colorado colleges for inviting the Palestinian activist and scholar Hanan Ashrawi to speak on their campuses (see an article from The Chronicle, September 10), and altercations between pro-Palestinian supporters and a group suporting Israel at San Francisco State University (see an article from The Chronicle, August 1).

In addition, federal rules being promulgated by the Office of Management and Budget about the release of sensitive, but unclassified, information that might present issues of national security are of concern to many university researchers, Mr. Knight says.

Robert M. O'Neil, director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and former president of the Universities of Virginia and Wisconsin, will lead the special committee.

"In part, we need to launch such an inquiry because we don't as yet have a complete database" of the events, Mr. O'Neil said. "My expectation a year ago was that we would have seen more conflict and greater tension than has occurred. But it may simply be more subtle than we suspect."

He emphasized that while the AAUP's focus is primarily the impact on faculty members, the committee will also look at how events have affected students, staff members, and other academic organizations, since no one else appears to be looking at those groups.

The committee is expected to issue a report at the end of its study, but has not yet set a timetable for doing so.