UW-Madison Chancellor: Academic Freedom Much Heavier Than the Law

3Apr/110

UW-Madison Chancellor: Academic Freedom Much Heavier Than the Law

Via a friend:

From: Chancellor Biddy Martin
Date: Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 1:48 PM
Subject: Academic freedom and open records
To: lrmeyer3@wisc.edu

Members of the campus community,

Two weeks ago UW-Madison received an open records request from Stephan
Thompson, deputy executive director of the state's Republican Party,
for email records of Professor Bill Cronon.

Professor Cronon is the Frederick Jackson Turner and Vilas Research
Professor of History, Geography and Environmental Studies at
UW-Madison. He is one of the university's most celebrated and
respected scholars, teachers, mentors and citizens. I am proud to
call him a colleague.

The implications of this case go beyond Bill Cronon. When Mr. Thompson
made his request, he was exercising his right under Wisconsin's public
records law both to make such a request and to make it without stating
his motive. Neither the request nor the absence of a stated motive
seemed particularly unusual. We frequently receive public records
requests with apparently political motives, from both the left and the
right, and every position in between. I announced that the university
would comply with the law and, as we do in all cases, apply the kind
of balancing test that the law allows, taking such things as the
rights to privacy and free expression into account. We have done that
analysis and will release the records later today that we believe are
in compliance with state law.

We are excluding records involving students because they are protected
under FERPA. We are excluding exchanges that fall outside the realm
of the faculty member's job responsibilities and that could be
considered personal pursuant to Wisconsin Supreme Court case law. We
are also excluding what we consider to be the private email exchanges
among scholars that fall within the orbit of academic freedom and all
that is entailed by it. Academic freedom is the freedom to pursue
knowledge and develop lines of argument without fear of reprisal for
controversial findings and without the premature disclosure of those
ideas.

Scholars and scientists pursue knowledge by way of open intellectual
exchange. Without a zone of privacy within which to conduct and
protect their work, scholars would not be able to produce new
knowledge or make life-enhancing discoveries. Lively, even heated and acrimonious debates over policy, campus and otherwise, as well as more narrowly defined disciplinary matters are essential elements of an intellectual environment and such debates are the very definition of the Wisconsin Idea.

When faculty members use email or any other medium to develop and
share their thoughts with one another, they must be able to assume a
right to the privacy of those exchanges, barring violations of state
law or university policy. Having every exchange of ideas subject to public exposure puts academic freedom in peril and threatens the processes by which knowledge is created. The consequence for our state will be the loss of the most talented and creative faculty who will choose to leave for universities where collegial exchange and the development of ideas can be undertaken without fear of premature exposure or reprisal for unpopular positions.

This does not mean that scholars can be irresponsible in the use of
state and university resources or the exercise of academic freedom. We
have dutifully reviewed Professor Cronon's records for any legal or
policy violations, such as improper uses of state or university
resources for partisan political activity. There are none.

To our faculty, I say: Continue to ask difficult questions, explore
unpopular lines of thought and exercise your academic freedom,
regardless of your point of view. As always, we will take our cue from
the bronze plaque on the walls of Bascom Hall. It calls for the
'continual and fearless sifting and winnowing' of ideas. It is our
tradition, our defining value, and the way to a better society.

Chancellor Biddy Martin

Emphasis is mine. Look, what the Chancellor is saying is that virtually no communications of academics are subject to the Open Records law, no matter what the law actually says, unless the University of Wisconsin decides that there has been a breach of its policies or of the law.

To make this case, she says that it would be stifling to intellectual activity to make every communication potentially subject to public exposure. Certainly that's true. But the question in the instant case is whether the Open Records request as written is reasonable or not. That's not something that she's bothered to address.

The reprisal for unpopular positions thing is perhaps the worst bit of this balderdash, considering the way that faculty as well as students at the UW have participated in the sometimes unlawful demonstrations on the Capitol, with their Walker = Hitler signs and all of the rest of the disgusting behavior that most faculty at least generally condoned. And it seems as though Judge Sumi is going to say that the Open Meetings law has been violated, because legislators ought to have to do their work before several thousand screaming demonstrators, after receiving death threats.

It's just another cowardly assertion of a double standard, cloaked in higher principles.