Academic Freedom Is Vulnerable To Violations Of Scholarly Research

Academic freedom is the corner— stone in higher education. There are abundant theories and public opinions to support it. But in reality, the academic freedom is vulnerable. This text is trying to inquiry into why the academic freedom is subjected to be interfered easily through a theoretical perspective.The paper is made up of five parts. Among them, the fourth part is the key part. It is listed as follows:Part one is an introduction. It mainly defines the meanings of three terms- freedom , academy and academic freedom . Freedom in the paper is based upon Berlin's two kinds of concepts on freedom . The term academy used in the paper introduces the new elements to its traditional meaning, which understands academy as a kind of faith. The term academic freedomhere pays further attention to the social responsibilities of the academic freedom .Part two introduces the theory of "academic freedom" . Mainly based on Brubacher' s on the philosophy of higher education , the paper articulates the theory of academic freedom from the following four aspects: epistemology , axiology, political theory and the relative independence of education .Part three analyzes the external reasons why the academic freedom is easy to infringe . it is suggested that the susceptibility of the academic freedom lies in its two prerequisites : " value neutrality " and u the assumption of human bad nature" , which are still controversies themselves.Part four is a key part of this paper. It has analyzed the susceptibility of the academic freedom from three aspects. First, university of scholars is conservative, enclosing and hierarchical , which causes negative influences upon the academic freedom ; Second, the university professor's spirit of the freedom of the thought , the independence of personality declines day by day, thus making the scholar's academic space narrower and narrower ; Third, subdivision of Speciality makes academy leave far away from the public and go farther gradually; personalized academy , simplified academy and formalization of academy have caused negative effects upon the academic freedom.Part five is a Summary. One of the main reasons why the academic freedom is easy to infringe lies in the univeritas' nature of universities and the scholars' speciality. The fragility that Academic freedom is easy to infringe is due to the intrinsic weakness of universities and scholars .which is impossible to get a radical cure .Fully apprehending the impacts of the univeritas nature on universities and scholars , can make us understand the academic freedom better from another perspective.