November 26, 1999

Academic Freedom: When Sauce for the Goose Isn't Sauce for the Gander

By STANLEY FISH

Academic freedom is a bad idea, a dubious principle that:

* Confuses eccentricity with genius and elevates pettiness, boorishness, and irresponsibility to the status of virtue.

* Evacuates morality by making all assertions equivalent and, because equivalent, inconsequential.

* Empties history of its meaning, so that actions proceeding from entirely different motives and agendas become indistinguishable as instances of individual preference and