Academic Freedom, BYU-Style

by Cliopatria

Jeffrey Nielsen is a practicing Mormon who has been an adjunct professor of philosophy at BYU. He recently published an op-ed criticizing the LDS leadership for supporting a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. The op-ed was written in respectful tones, and based its case on arguments rather than emotion, and avoided harsh criticism of the integrity of the LDS leadership.

As a result, BYU fired him. In a June 8 letter, his department chair wrote,"In accordance with the order of the church, we do not consider it our responsibility to correct, contradict or dismiss official pronouncements of the church. Since you have chosen to contradict and oppose the church in an area of great concern to church leaders, and to do so in a public forum, we will not rehire you after the current term is over."

Defenders of the academic status quo sometimes argue that right-wing schools engage in even more extreme"groupthink" than mainstream public universities. As the Neilsen case shows, this claim is absolutely true. But should anyone really be comforted by the fact that the personnel process in most universities isn't quite as bad as that at BYU?

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Greg James Robinson - 6/23/2006

It seems to me that the tone of a piece, certainly unless it was truly defamatory, should have nothing to do with the academic freedom of the person writing it. It is interesting to compare this situation with the controversy over Ryerson University's granting of an honorary degree to Margaret Somerville, who has made a career of opposing Gay marriage, and the respectful tone of the disent.

Russell Arben Fox - 6/14/2006

I'm not particularly interested in defending my alma mater on this matter, but a couple of points worth considering:

1) A couple of years back, when the Federal Marriage Amendment made its last go-around, two tenured BYU political science professors, Richard Davis and Byron Daynes, wrote an editorial in the Salt Lake Tribune which similarly opposed passage of the amendment. They're still there, and so far as I know, suffered no consequences whatsoever.

2) What made the difference? Partly, of course, is the fact that Davis and Daynes were tenured, while Nielsen was an adjunct. Also, there is the fact that while the LDS Church has been involving itself in fights over same-sex marriage on the state level for years now, they had not previously voiced such strong support for federal action, and so there is reason to think that the Board of Trustees (which overlaps greatly with the LDS Church general leadership) wouldn't have been quite so concerned about public dissent in the past.

3) But what really made the difference was the angle of the piece. Robert may feel that the tone of Nielsen's editorial was "respectful" and that it avoided "harsh criticism," but clearly such judgments are in the eye of the beholder. Long-time veterans of the struggles over academic freedom at BYU would have seen any number of red flags in the piece, assuming Nielsen didn't want himself to become a martyr (e.g., alleging that the church's support for the church was "immoral," that the church leadership is acting in a duplicitous manner regarding their history, etc.) I don't mean to deny that it is a good editorial, given the newspaper audience it was being pitched to; as far as that goes, it is a perfectly legitimate and reasoned piece. But for anyone familiar with BYU, the likely outcome--a quick, protective backlash, rather than an increase in discussion on campus--was predictable.

Again, I'm not defending the actions of the BYU. On the contrary, they sadden me. I'm just adding some context to suggest that there are a lot of people who are unhappy with this situation, more than a few of whom are unhappy because they know that there are ways in which things can get done and be said at BYU, even unpopular and critical things; when someone like Nielsen doesn't follow those unwritten rules, he does more damage to his cause than perhaps he knows.

Robert KC Johnson - 6/14/2006

BYU has been a regular on the AAUP's censured list; while it has tenure, untenured faculty can be fired for the same reason this adjunct was. This kind of system makes it very unlikely that anyone who's tenured will disagree with the party line.

At CUNY, this action would have been illegal, but not because of any union protections: as a public institution, we cannot (ostensibly) dismiss anyone, including adjuncts, for their public comments. (I know otherwise, of course.) There are no union protections for right of adjunct reappointment, though the PSC has demanded one, on grounds of academic freedom, for adjuncts charged with, or convicted of, politically tinged crimes (at least involving political issues the current leadership supports), as in the Yousry and Rosenberg cases. For understandable reasons, this demand hasn't gotten too far.

Ralph E. Luker - 6/14/2006

Adam's point is well-taken. I suspect that BYU does have tenure, but unless adjuncts there have union-negotiated protections such as CUNY does -- and about which KC is sometimes inclined to complain -- adjunct faculty are "at will" employees, subject to termination semester by semester, with no explanation required.

Adam Kotsko - 6/14/2006

I just wonder if this situation would have been different if he'd been a tenured faculty member. My alma mater did not normally grant tenure -- almost everyone was on five-year contracts at the most, from my understanding.

If he's an adjunct professor, then presumably his contract is semester-by-semester anyway, so they could have just chosen (passive-aggressively) to let him go without stating a cause.