Brigham Young University administrators disagree with a report published Monday that says the university violated a professor's academic freedom.
The reaction of former BYU professor Gail Turley Houston can be summed up in one word: vindication.The report, which appears in the American Association of University Professors' journal Academe, is the result of a three-day visit by two scholars in January. The professors sent by AAUP interviewed approximately 100 faculty members, administrators and students about overall academic conditions as well as individual cases.
The report concludes "that infringements on academic freedom are distressingly common and that the climate for academic freedom is distressingly poor." It also says that BYU's limits on individual academic freedom, set forth in a 1992 document, are "inadequately specific."
But BYU officials, who cooperated with the investigation into allegations made by Houston and then responded to the findings, say the report contains misstatements and erroneous conclusions. A brief statement from BYU's administration was published with the report.
"We take academic freedom very seriously," said James D. Gordon III, BYU associate academic vice president. Gordon denied that BYU violated Houston's academic freedom in failing to grant her tenure last year.
Gordon believes the AAUP's negative report results from the group's "goal to impose a secular model on religious universities."
"Scholars have observed that the AAUP has an antipathy toward religious institutions," he said. "We're going to be true to our intellectual and spiritual mission."
Besides a thorough review of Houston's case, the AAUP report discusses incidents dating back to 1992 concerning several BYU professors, including Cecilia Konchar Farr, David Knowlton, Brian Evenson and Steven Epperson.
"I think, frankly, ever since Cecilia, there's been this real chill on campus that faculty have to watch what they say," Houston told the Deseret News. "There's a lot of scared faculty at BYU right now."
Houston, who is now working at the University of New Mexico, hopes the AAUP report can change some of the things she believes hold BYU back.
"I would hope that instead of being defensive and paranoid, (BYU officials) would listen carefully and allow this information to help them," she said.
The AAUP is a professors' organization based in Washington, D.C. It is not an accrediting body, and universities are not obligated to follow its policies. According to BYU administrators, only about 5 percent of professors across the nation are AAUP members.
BYU's AAUP chapter, which has 20 dues-paying members, says the report - combined with other factors - signals that the university is in academic distress.
"How can the BYU administration continue to claim that they don't lose any sleep over such reports?" asks a statement faxed to news organizations that was signed by thechapter's board of directors. "How can they continue to argue that the reasoned judgments against them are from people who are `antagonistic to the university mission?' "
Among the assertions made in the AAUP report are:
- Houston did not receive fair warning of limitations on her academic freedom; in particular, she was not "warned that her feminist scholarship and teaching would receive intense scrutiny beyond that normally expected."
- BYU incorrectly concluded that Houston contradicted fundamental doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and deliberately attacked the church through an article in the off-campus "Student Review" and a speech at a Sunstone symposium in which she discussed praying to "Mother in Heaven."
- BYU violated its own rank advancement policies by including in Houston's file information about the "Review" article and the Sunstone speech.
BYU officials countered each of the AAUP's assertions in their published response as well as a more lengthy response sent to the AAUP in January. BYU contends that a 1940 AAUP document allows religious universities to place certain limitations on professors' academic freedom, and that the report's findings contradict the AAUP's own policies.
The AAUP likely will hold a vote at a June 1998 convention concerning whether the group will censure BYU. Currently, several dozen universities across the nation, including Southern California and Westminster College of Salt Lake City, are on the AAUP's censured list.
Some professors say even if BYU gets censured, it won't seriously affect the university.
"I don't put much credence in the AAUP," said BYU professor Barbara Lockhart, who was interviewed by AAUP scholars during their visit. "It's not a group that's . . . prestigious."
Lockhart said the investigating committee appeared ignorant of important points relative to BYU's relationship with the LDS Church, and they were eager to dismiss sentiments favorable to the university.