Neither/Nor

Stanley Fish takes on the cant of “academic freedom” in a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Is academic freedom a philosophical concept tied to larger concepts of individual dignity and autonomy, or is it a guild concept developed in an effort to insulate the enterprise from the threat of a hostile takeover? I come down on the side of guild concept. Academic freedom is not a subset of freedom in general, and one cannot reason from a theoretical account of freedom to what one is free to do in a university setting. Academic freedom, to put it simply and starkly, is freedom for academics—that is, for those engaged in a certain task.

What many people mean when they say “academic freedom” is neither “academic” nor “freedom”—discuss.