The Liberal Arts Creed: Say What You Think and Say What You Mean

---

In Liberal Arts, we uphold academic freedom in the classroom for students and  professors because exchanging ideas freely is what makes learning possible.  In “Why MassArt Must Uphold the Student’s Right to Freely Learn and the Professor’s Right to Freely Teach In the Classroom” we state, among other things, this:

We in the Liberal Arts Department hold fast to the values of freedom of speech and academic freedom. We remain committed to the free search for truth and its free exposition in the service of the common good. We believe that education can only flourish when the right to speak and the right to hear are guaranteed to all. Only then can education be a forum where understanding grows and the dignity of students and teachers is affirmed. We commit ourselves to achieving those goals—here and now, in our classrooms, on this campus, and in the hope and expectation that liberating one mind eventually liberates all of them.

Therefore, the Administration must be mindful of the following: a class member’s declaration that this reading, this film, this discussion of scientific data makes the student feel uncomfortable does not authorize that student to silence or intimidate other students. Nor does such a declaration constitute grounds for administrators to discipline a professor, investigate a professor, or institute other adverse actions against a professor. Such actions violate our academic freedom to pursue ideas, hunt for truth, and express thoughts freely, that the Board of Higher Education in Article V.A. of the 2014-2017 collective bargaining agreement, quoted above, identifies as “essential to the common good.”

---

Read the entire .Academic Freedom statement from Liberal Arts.