Yesterday’s Las Vegas Sun carried an article on Carol Harter’s statement that the university has dropped its case against Hans-Hermann Hoppe. This is a victory of sorts, but the story also notes that her statement is not exactly a clarion call on behalf of the freedom to teach; indeed, it seems to leave an opening for future violations of its contractual guarantee of academic freedom insofar as lecture content must be tempered by “significant corresponding academic responsibility”; “where there may be ambiguity between the two” freedom must be “foremost.”
Does academic freedom here seem more like contingent administrative permission, something granted to prisoners on parole? Worse, does the statement suggest that the Hoppe case was somehow an ambiguous one? Another reading could note that the university bylaws assert that freedom and “academic responsibility” (defined by?) are “equally demanding.”In that sense, Dr. Harter’s assertion that freedom is actually more important can be seen as big shift in Hoppe’s favor.
However you parse it, it is hard to see how this resolution is going to inspire faculty who might have felt the chill to rest assured that they can count on the administration to back them up in dispute. So it makes sense that neither the ACLU nor Professor Hoppe is satisfied. Moreover, the statement offers no compensation to Hoppe for an entire year of diversion and difficulty with this case.
