CAFPRR Statement on Resource Allocation and Academic Freedom (2016)
The following statement was drafted by the MLA Committee on Academic Freedom and Professional Rights and Responsibilities in October 2016. The MLA Executive Council approved the document as an MLA statement in February 2017.
In recent years, funding for humanities disciplines has become more limited, particularly at public universities. At the same time, university finances have become more complex, sometimes more opaque, and in many cases more responsive to nonacademic interests. CAFPRR believes that these changes are having a quietly negative impact on the scholarship, academic freedom, and professional rights of MLA members.
The MLA is on record expressing concern when external funding agencies intervene in academic processes. Academic freedom may also be affected by procedures that are internal to colleges and universities themselves. The association’s concern extends to restrictions on freedom to teach, learn, and research that are imposed through internal resource allocation.
The Tool Kit on Academic Freedom notes the increasing prominence of financial factors in academic life. These go far beyond salary equity and related matters of individual financing that are more familiar to faculty members. For example, the Tool Kit states, “If teachers can be threatened with loss of employment because their research or teaching does not conform to private funding interests or because they publish or teach unpopular ideas, inquiry is not free.”
Inquiry may be restricted through means that do not involve threats to employment. Funds supporting effective teaching or research may be reduced or withheld not on intellectual or professional grounds, but solely on financial grounds. These restrictions are particularly worrisome when they are not disclosed or discussed with faculty bodies through processes of shared governance. Under some circumstances, financial calculations may constitute discrimination against individuals, subdisciplines, or disciplines as a whole. If the calculations and their rationales are not shared with appropriate faculty members, the faculty cannot determine whether academic freedom has been affected or participate in the adjudication of conflicting claims.
Both the American Association of University Professors and the MLA define academic freedom as a “collective professional responsibility.” Academic freedom rests on continuing processes of interpretation conducted by professional communities. Community members can only administer academic freedom to the extent that they have access to the materials being used to evaluate a particular case, while also holding a position of authority sufficient to enable participation in shared governance. Given the required access to information and related materials, faculty members have a concomitant responsibility to engage deeply with the materials so that they can function as equal and respected partners in shared governance processes. While faculty access is widely accepted for academic personnel materials—publication records, teaching evaluations—faculty members have not generally had access to the materials that inform administrative resource allocation. Administrators should share with faculty members the same financial information that they use in making budget allocation decisions. Faculty members have an obligation to educate themselves to the point where they can conduct fully informed analyses of and offer systematic responses to the information that they receive. This collaborative process is necessary because the financial management of teaching and research shapes the educational mission of the university, its place within the community, and the academic lives of scholars and students.
Therefore, the MLA calls on college and university administrations to acknowledge that academic freedom protections cover the financial management of the academic processes of teaching and research. Administrations must work with faculty senates and faculty members to ensure that financial data are available to faculty members and to develop the financial competence that will allow faculty members to participate in the financial decisions that affect their academic units and shape patterns of research funding across disciplines.