A DIGEST OF CHAIM GANS' ARTICLE ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM

The article refers to two aspects of academic freedom:
(1) freedom of academics to act in the public sphere,
and (2) the professional freedom of research and teaching. 

The article assumes that a liberal society
(i.e., a society who's organizing principle is the
priority of the individual over the state and/or the society),
but the argument applies at varying extent also to other societies.

The article's pivot is the definition of academia as a social
institute aimed at advancing human knowledge and understanding,
and the claim that there is a tight relation between this aim and the
freedom of study and research, which in turn rely on the
encouragement of curiosity and critical thinking.
Furthermore, the academia's function as a fortress of free inquiry
balances the restriction of free inquiry in other social institutes 
(e.g., the army and the elementary education system), whereas such a
balance is required in a liberal society. (Since such society must 
balance conflicting values such that if some institutes restrict
freedom when focusing on security and stability, then there must exist
other institutes that nurture freedom.) 

The discussion of freedom of academics to act in the public sphere
asserts that (i) there is no justification to restrict the public
action of academics akin the restrictions imposed on members of other
social institutes (since the academia is not entrusted with performance),
(ii) that there is no room to extend the freedom of academics beyond
that of ordinary citizens (because the freedom of the later is anyhow
maximal in an ideal liberal society), and (iii) there are good reasons
to provide extra protection and guarantees to the freedom of speech
and action of academics in the public sphere (because of the very
nature of the academia as an institute and the extensive training 
of its members in critical thinking). 

Most of the article is devoted to a discussion of the professional freedom 
of research and teaching. The main point is that the nature of the
academic inquiry (which takes place at the frontiers of human knowledge)
makes those involved in it the supreme experts in their respective areas. 
Thus, subjecting these researchers to any authority makes no sense.
Furthermore, since the institutional aim of academia is advancing
human knowledge and understanding (and not any specific goal),
the aims of study should not be imposed from the outside.
Thus, each scholar and researcher must be given full freedom to
determine the direction of his/her studies, and in particular be free 
of any human authority and be subjected only to the principles of
rationality (and the professional methodology derived from them).

The latter restriction raises the idea of creating various bodies 
that will monitor the adherence to the principles of rationality. 
The idea is rejected firstly because the individual researchers are
supposed to be the top experts in their field, and it will be
infeasible to create bodies who expertise in the relevant field
is comparable (let alone superior). Furthermore, the danger of
illegitimate restriction of the freedom of inquiry is much bigger
and this danger relates to the very essence of academia.
It is also noted that the cases of clear abuse of professional freedom
are rather rare.  

Lastly, the article explains the legitimate and unavoidable role 
of non-academic values in academia. Since the frontier of knowledge is
infinite (or just much bigger than the researching capacities of the
academia at any given time), a choice of subjects for research and
teaching is unavoidable. Such a choice must be determined firstly by
the intrinsic needs of the academia, but these intrinsic needs leave
room for further choices and it is here that non-academic values may
enter (and in act must enter since the academic values cannot help here).
These non-academic values may include objective needs of the society
as well as subjective desires of the searchers.