We are profoundly disturbed by the Tennessee Legislature’s consideration of a student “Academic Bill of Rights.”

The legislation, House Bill 432 and its companion Senate Bill 1117, is part of a national trend. On its surface, a student bill of rights sounds like a good idea – students can safely voice their opinions without fear of reprisal; students can have grievance procedures to follow when they believe bias has occurred; and students can expect their work to be evaluated fairly.

But students already have all those protections: just look at UTM’s Faculty Handbook, which says: “Every faculty member has the responsibility to discharge his/her duties in a fair and conscientious manner in accordance with standards generally recognized within the academic community,” including basing evaluations upon professional judgment and avoiding consideration “of factors such as race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, handicap, political or cultural affiliation, (etc.)."

So why do we need an Academic Bill of Rights? We believe it is because certain lawmakers, in Tennessee and elsewhere, wish to cripple the ability of faculty members to encourage individual and independent thought along with lively debate on issues of the day.

Academic freedom of faculty and students is the bedrock of higher education. However, if the Academic Bill of Rights is passed, the very dialogue we embrace will become watered down, at best. Any idea that might offend a student won’t be safe for a professor to express. Those professors who don’t play by the new rules can be sued and punished. The environment once dominated by scholarly standards will now be dominated by courts, administrative policies and the political mores of the day.

What would amount to unlimited “academic freedom” for students may very well become enslavement for academia. We stand behind our professors’ right to run their classrooms as they see fit, without interference from backward bureaucrats in Nashville. Sen. Finney, Rep. Campfield and a host of representatives should worry more about adequately paying the professors we have before they start telling them how to teach.