American ambivalence toward academic freedom

Abstract

Why are U.S. academics, even after tenure and promotion, so timid in their exercise of academic freedom? Part of the problem is institutional academics are subject to a long probationary period under tight collegial control but part of the problem is ideological. A hybrid of seventeenth-century British and nineteenth-century German ideals, U.S. academia and the nation more generally remains ambivalent toward the value of academic freedom, ultimately inhibiting an unequivocal endorsement.