‘A teacher has the right to state honest conviction’

“The creation of the ‘modern university’ dates back to the early 1900s when American professors fashioned for their institutions a mission of social service and defined themselves as truth-seekers whose expertise would bring social benefits.

“These academics also introduced a new idea to the American public: academic freedom. In 1925, University of North Carolina President Harry Woodburn Chase proclaimed, ‘What the university believes with all its heart, is that a teacher has a right to state the honest conviction to which he has come through his work, that he has the right of freedom of speech in teaching just as any other citizen has that right under the Constitution.’ ”

— From “The New Southern University: Academic Freedom and Liberalism at UNC” by Charles J. Holden (2012)