Protection Of Academic Freedom In The Framework Of University Autonomy

Academic career is more sacred than other occupations, which elegance manifests in autonomy. Academic is a product of freedom of mind, which development is a process of struggling for freedom. In addition, academic freedom also promotes the development of academic. Therefore, academic freedom definitely is one of the constitutional basic rights. Different from freedom of speech, academic freedom contains freedom of academic thought, freedom of research, freedom of teaching, freedom of communication and freedom of publication. Freedom of teaching mainly belongs to teachers while other freedoms belong to everyone. Generally, colleges and its teachers, as the most important research institutions and researchers, are the main subjects of right of academic freedom. Academic freedom is not absolute, compared to other basic rights such as personal freedom. It does not certainly have the priority. Scholars can not abuse the right of academic freedom. Academic freedom also subjects to the constraints of academic standards.Academic freedom is naturally related to university autonomy. On one hand, academic freedom justifies the autonomy of university. On the other hand, university autonomy is the institutional protection of academic freedom. The relationship between academic freedom and university autonomy is:the former is the end, the latter is the means. Academic freedom has the dual attributes of personal right and institution. As an institution, academic freedom cannot only protect from the infringement of the state, but also can require the state to create a system to promote the development of academic freedom.The aim of university autonomy is to protect academic freedom; this determines the content and limits of university autonomy. University autonomy cannot deviate from the protection of academic freedom. But the affairs of university are not limited to the inherent content of academic freedom; it also contains the necessary power related to academic freedom, such as financial autonomy, staff autonomy, academic autonomy and administrative autonomy. These are typical administrative acts, and are unilateral, mandatory and with the established force, binding force and execution force. They relate to two kinds of opposite persons, such as teachers and students.Since the university autonomy is a means of achieving academic freedom, universities must accept the supervision of state. The supervision mainly concerns the legality of actions of universities. University continues to have wide discretion in making decisions. The supervision includes administrative and judicial supervision. Judicial supervision is not unlimited, whether one can bring an administrative lawsuit depends on the importance of universities' actions.Although the Constitution of our country specifies academic freedom, there are many shortcomings in specific protection institutions. There are no institutional protections of academic freedom. Instead of university autonomy, the related term in our law is "autonomy in running schools". Autonomy in running schools has no inherent relationship with academic freedom. In our country, universities have some power to determine some matters.This power is authorized by the state with the aim of achieving efficiency. There are still too many interventions in universities.In my opinion, in order to improve university autonomy, we should protect academic freedom of students, teachers and colleges. In terms of protection of the rights of students, firstly, we should improve the complaints system. Secondly, we should expand the scope of judicial relief. The scope of administrative litigation should also contain school sanctions, enrollment and evaluation of students' behaviors. As to the standards of review, we should separate academic disputes from administrative disputes.In order to protect the rights of teachers, we should improve the legal position of teachers. Firstly, teachers are not attached to education department. If the latter infringes the rights of the former, teachers can bring an administrative litigation. Secondly, the relationship between teachers and universities is contractual. If there are disputes between them, teachers can protect themselves by arbitration and litigation. Besides, we must ensure the participation of teachers in school management. In order to protect teachers'academic freedom, we must also improve academic evaluation mechanism.The core issue in protecting university autonomy is to characterize university as public legal person. Universities in China today are commonly characterized as public institutions. This characterization left universities becomes vassals of the government. Although in Higher Education Act, universities are characterized as legal persons, it is in the area of private affairs. In my opinion, we should take the relationship of universities and educational administrative authorities into the administrative proceedings. If the autonomy of universities is damaged by administrative authorities, the universities are entitled to bring litigation.