Academic Freedom and Responsibility
The San Joaquin Delta College Board of Trustees believes that faculty and students have the right to pursue teaching and learning with full freedom of inquiry. In order to assure that this viewpoint is understood by all, the Board has adopted the following policy on Academic Freedom and Responsibility
- Academic freedom and academic responsibility are inseparable. Academic freedom is the right of the faculty member to interpret findings logically, rationally, and dispassionately and to communicate conclusions without being subjected to any interference, molestation, or penalization because these conclusions are at a variance with those of constituted authorities or organized groups beyond the College.
- Likewise, the academic freedom of the student is the freedom to express and to defend views or beliefs, the freedom to question and differ, without authoritative repression and without scholastic penalization by the faculty or the College.
- Academic freedom carries with it corresponding responsibilities. Academic responsibility emphasizes the obligation to study, to investigate, to present and interpret, and to discuss facts and ideas concerning man, human society, and the physical and biological world in all branches and fields of knowledge. Since human knowledge is limited and changeable, the instructor will acknowledge the facts on which controversial views are based and show respect for opinions held by others. While striving to avoid bias, the instructor will, nevertheless, present the conclusions to which he or she believes the evidence points.
- To ensure for San Joaquin Delta College these principles of academic freedom, the administration of the College and the Board as the governing body of the District, will at all times demonstrate their support by actively and openly working toward a climate which will foster this freedom. Such participation will extend to the point of defending and supporting any faculty member who, while maintaining the high standards of his profession, finds his or her freedom of expression attacked or curtailed. (Policy 6620, 1/21/69)
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