The College District, like all other institutions of higher education, serves the common good, which depends upon uninhibited search for truth and its open expression. The points enumerated below constitute its position on academic freedom:

1. Faculty members are appointed to impart to their students and to their communities the truth as they see it in their respective disciplines. The teacher's right to teach preserves the student's right to learn.
2. The mastery of a subject makes a faculty member a qualified authority in that discipline and competent to choose how to present its information and conclusions to students. The following are among the freedoms and responsibilities that should reside primarily with the faculty, with the advice and consent of the appropriate dean of instruction: planning and revising curricula, selecting textbooks and readings, selecting classroom films and other teaching materials, choosing instructional methodologies, assigning grades, and maintaining classroom discipline.
3. Faculty members are citizens, and, therefore, possess the rights of citizens to speak freely outside the classroom on matters of public concern and to participate in lawful political activities.
4. Prior restraint or sanctions should not be imposed upon faculty members in the exercise of their rights as citizens or duties as teachers. Nor should faculty members fear reprisals for exercising their civic rights and academic freedom.
5. Faculty members have a right to expect the Board and the College District's administrators to uphold vigorously the principles of academic freedom and to protect the faculty from harassment, censorship, or interference from outside groups and individuals.

1. Faculty members should be judicious in the introduction of material in the classroom without forfeiting the instructional benefits of controversy.
2. Faculty members are entitled to all rights and privileges of academic freedom in the classroom while discussing the subjects they teach. No faculty member, however, should attempt to force on his or her students a personal viewpoint intolerant of the rights of others to hold or express diverse opinions. Faculty members shall not act in a manner that is perceived as being abusive, either physically or verbally, by his or her students.
3. Faculty members shall recognize their responsibility to maintain competence in their disciplines through continued professional development and to demonstrate that competence through consistently adequate preparation and performance.
4. Faculty members shall recognize that the public will judge their institution and their profession by their public conduct. Therefore, faculty members should always make clear that the views they express are their own and should avoid creating the impression that they speak or act on behalf of the College District or of their profession.
5. Faculty members shall recognize their responsibility to adhere to the policies and procedures of the institution. Therefore, faculty members who have differences of opinion with existing or proposed policy or procedure should express these views through the standing committee structure of the College District or their supervising administrators.

This online presentation of your college district's policy concerning the stated subject material is an electronic representation of TASB's record of the college district's currently adopted policy manual. It does not reflect updating activities in progess nor is it a legally binding document. Please contact the office of the President or Chancellor for the official, legally binding generation of this and the other policies that pertain to your college district.