Wednesday, February 23, 2005
It never ends, does it?
RIC is a state university. In a state university, can a faculty member require a project that has ideological positions with which the student does not agree? Does academic freedom for faculty allow a professor to require the perspective from which a student can write a paper?
There's much more to the story. FIRE is representing the student, and on their blog Robert Shibley notes,
The real genesis of Felkner�s problem is that he believes that some government social welfare programs�specifically, some programs that RIC�s social work faculty supports�don�t help the poor, and, more generally, that he is more �conservative� in his views than the average social worker. RIC�s School of Social Work has made it quite clear that holding beliefs not in lockstep with those of the school is out of bounds, and it is backing up this stance with real penalties.There's a similar story from the Social Work department here at SCSU, but I'm the wrong guy to tell it. Here's hoping Scholar Jack can catch us up.