Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses a matter that has provoked much attention and debate in recent years: the status and fate of free speech, open inquiry, and academic freedom in higher education. Three possible models for higher education present themselves for the consideration, namely: the liberal model, the proprietary model, and the mixed model. The liberal model received one of its most famous American voices in the 1915 General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP 1915). Most universities and colleges remain publicly committed to long-established liberal principles of academic freedom and freedom of speech. The status and fate of campus free speech and open inquiry are important not only to higher education and its standing—which is now questioned by many—but, more broadly, to democratic regimes themselves.