<p>Hey guys</p>
<p>I heard bad things about academic freedom in colleges, so I wanna know what you guys think of that.</p>
<p>And maybe share some information about which colleges are more "FREE" than others.
I also want to see your comments on the academic atmospheres on colleges you'd like to mention.</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Academic freedom is alive and well on most American colleges.
An exception would be certain religious schools that insist on teaching biology and a few other subjects based on their own doctrine.</p>
<p>One hears a lot about conformity to “politically correct thought” on some campuses. To the extent this exists, it’s more a matter of student peer pressure or a few overbearing professors than official school doctrine. Some schools do have “speech codes” that conservatives find objectionable. If this is your concern, check out the following guide:</p>
<p>[CollegeGuide.org</a> - Frequently Asked Questions](<a href=“http://www.collegeguide.org/about_faq.aspx]CollegeGuide.org”>http://www.collegeguide.org/about_faq.aspx)</p>
<p>The articles on this site are well-written and interesting. They often provide good information about the social atmosphere of colleges. They are peppered with tendentious comments from a conservative (and sometimes fairly anti-intellectual) perspective.</p>
<p>Thank you tk! Quite helpful!</p>
<p>Another good resource for those concerned about speech codes and academic freedom:</p>
<p>[Mission</a> - FIRE](<a href=“http://thefire.org/about/mission/]Mission”>Mission | The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression)</p>
<p>Academic freedom isn’t an issue at a majority of unversities, especially in the northeast. You may find more conservative colleges in the deep south less tolerant of academic freedom, but it is rare and usually those are issues for the more protestant-affiliated universities.</p>
<p>I think the existence of a organization FIRE may suggest the infringement of academic freedom is not negligible.</p>
<p>And I wonder why protestant-affiliated universities have problems with Academic Freedom, since Protestants want to be free from Catholic. Academic Freedom,religious freedom, but aren’t they all Freedom!?</p>
<p>The religious south is okay with freedom so long as it is their freedom. Slavery anyone?</p>
<p>Informative, I believe you are misinformed. Slavery has been illegal for more than 100 years. While I realize there are still some racists in the South (and in other areas of the country as well), I’ve lived many of my 50 years in the South, graduated from a Christian college, sent my children to a Christian school and attend church services every Sunday. </p>
<p>In all that time, I have never heard anybody advocate slavery.</p>
<p>Obviously, some marginal religious schools such as Liberty, Bob Jones or Oral Roberts do not tolerate any freedom of thought or inquiry. Beyond them, BYU is the one “serious” college that seems to have persistent issues with academic freedom and has been censured by the AAUP on the issue.</p>
<p>Among Catholic universities, the jesuit schools seem most independent of toeing the Vatican’s line on controversial teachings.</p>