Academic freedom at Brigham Young University has been the subject of several controversies regarding the school, mostly focusing on its religious nature. In 1992, BYU issued a statement limiting academic freedom in certain areas, including language that attacked The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and language that violates the university's honor code. Since this statement was released, the university has received continued accreditation from the Northwest Association of Schools and of Colleges and Universities, which specifically approved of the new statement, as it was typical of many religious institutions. In 1997, the American Association of University Professors (with a membership of about 47,000) criticized BYU based on the wording of the new statement, as well as recent controversies involving several professors allegedly denied their academic rights. Cecilia Konchar Farr, David Knowlton, Gail T. Houston, are among the more notable controversies, although BYU has stated that these professors' discharge was based on issues other than academic speech.
Famous quotes containing the words academic, freedom, brigham, young and/or university:
“You know lots of criticism is written by characters who are very academic and think it is a sign you are worthless if you make jokes or kid or even clown. I wouldn’t kid Our Lord if he was on the cross. But I would attempt a joke with him if I ran into him chasing the money changers out of the temple.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave,
His soul is marching on.”
—Thomas Brigham Bishop (1835–1905)
“Once the Xerox copier was invented, diplomacy died.”
—Andrew Young (b. 1932)
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)