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California Faculty Association at CSU San Marcos |
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CFA Position Statement
on Senate Bill 5 California Senate Bill 5, the “Academic Bill of Rights,” begins by defining “the central purposes of the university.” These are “the pursuit of truth, the discovery of new knowledge through scholarship and research, the study and reasoned criticism of intellectual and cultural traditions, the teaching and general development of students to help them become creative individuals and productive citizens of a pluralistic democracy, and the transmission of knowledge and learning to a society at large.” The California Faculty Association (CFA) at Cal State San Marcos strongly endorses this description of the important work that our members do. SB 5 also claims to protect free speech, pluralism, and fairness in the classroom, and to ensure an atmosphere of intellectual diversity. These values too are shared by CFA members. However, by inviting governmental and judicial oversight of the curricular content of our academic programs, SB 5 will prevent CFA members from pursuing truth, speaking freely, and engaging honestly with the ideas of our students and colleagues. SB 5 demonizes university faculty and represents our students as children. It tacitly accuses CFA members of taking “unfair advantage” of their students’ “immaturity” in order to engage in programs of “indoctrination.” This is a gross misrepresentation of the vibrant debates and discussions that take place in our classrooms. SB 5 requires that CFA members accept the idea that knowledge within their disciplines is “unsettled” and “uncertain.” This may be true in some cases, but it is not true that all ideas are equally valid in any disciplinary context. Academic disciplines are communities of inquiry defined by shared warrants and standards. They develop over time by considering alternative theories, accepting some and rejecting others through a process of professional debate and consensus. In other words, it is the specific job duty of CFA members to ascertain the credibility of competing theories within the disciplines to which they belong. SB 5 interferes directly with that process by requiring faculty to accept state-mandated definitions of what constitute plausible ideas. SB 5 further requires CFA members to teach “the spectrum of significant scholarly viewpoints” in their disciplines. Again, this invites the state to define what constitutes a significant viewpoint and thus imposes prior restraint on the free speech of faculty in the classroom. The CFA at Cal State San Marcos endorses the resolution of opposition to SB 5 adopted by the Associated Students, Inc., as well as the Statement on SB 5 issued by the American Association of University Professors. We also deplore that this attack on student access to faculty expertise compounds already sharp restrictions on educational access imposed through budget cuts and tuition hikes. We urge all members of the Cal State San Marcos community to oppose this bill. |
