Academic Freedom And Church-Related Institutions

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Academic Freedom and Church-Related Institutions
As mentioned earlier, the documents of the AAUP do not address how academic freedom is secured in church-related institutions without disdaining religious beliefs or goals. In addition, the First Amendment protection on academic freedom does not apply to private or independent institutions but to public colleges and universities. For this reason, academic freedom in religious colleges, universities, and seminaries is controversial. This section will investigate the debate on academic freedom in church-related institutions.
Argumentations for Full Academic Freedom
Three argumentations are adopted to support full academic freedom: “epistemological,” “functional,” and “political” approaches. An epistemological argument is framed as a philosophical approach. Tillman explains:
Based upon the presuppositions that the discovery of truth is a good-in-itself, that not all truth is as yet discovered, and that knowledge is most likely to arise through free inquiry, the epistemological justification of academic freedom calls for the removal of all restraints upon academic inquiry other than the requirements indigenous to critical thinking and
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Diekema contends that “individual and corporate academic freedom policies comport well with each other. In similar fashion, Tillman introduces two terms: faculty academic freedom and institutional academic freedom. He defines institutional academic freedom as “the freedom of a university or college to further its special purpose without allowing the conduct of any of its members to damage its credentials or influence.” Tillman argues that institutional academic freedom should not be disdained because it has been historically held although it is “much less recognized as a distinct concept . . . than faculty academic freedom.” In other words, institutional academic freedom should be recognized as much as faculty academic freedom is