EDUCATION
THE TARR CONTROVERSY: ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND PACIFIC UNIVERSITIES

The controversy surrounding USP Vice-Chancellor Tony Tarr's decision to speak to the Grand Fijian Coalition could possibly shake the very foundation of universities in this part of the world - that foundation called academic freedom.

By Dr GANESH CHAND in Lautoka

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University of the South Pacific's Vice-Chancellor Tony Tarr's decision to speak at the meeting of the Grand Fijian Coalition has raised some controversy in the Fiji press. Should Tarr have accepted this invitation? Politicians opposed to the Grand Coalition idea would say that is not Tarr's business. Those supporting the Coalition would endorse the decision. Politicians have their say, and they should as they are budding legislators.

But should the academic community also have its say on this? I suggest that the controversy surrounding this could possibly shake the very foundation of universities in this part of the world - that foundation called academic freedom.

It is, however, not only Tarr's invitation and acceptance which makes this matter of significance. Only during the last day or so, one prominent supporter of the newly founded University of Fiji stated that he didn't want anything to do with a University which, according to his written statement, "associates itself with a racist Prime Minister". He was referring to the presence of the Prime Minister on the Saweni campus.

And only recently, one important academic organisation was forced by the organisation's chairperson to withdraw sponsorship of a public lecture on some aspect of Fiji's history - the problem was not the content of the lecture (which in any case was not known before it was delivered); rather the problem of the chair holder was the person to deliver it, for he had some years earlier quoted in his work from another author a set of facts which was not pleasant to the chair holder! The lecture, delivered on the scheduled date but under a different sponsor without the knowledge of the speaker, was a thundering success.

Creating knowledge
Earlier we had the interesting case of the USP management pulling the plug off the USP Journalism Program's website Pacific Journalism Online - a matter which caused significant controversy around the region on the academic freedom - politics nexus. Years earlier, the USP staff union went on a one day protest when the then management decided to invite the Fiji military coup leader to the campus to honor him.

The important question that arises is: what is the role of universities? And what is the role of academics, administrators, and students within a university environment.

One function which most associate universities with is preparing students for the labour market - a function which involves educating them and certifying them as knowledgable in some area of skill. Modern universities spend most of their time and funds in doing this. This is a function which is no more than dissemination of knowledge.

But this is not all that is to a university. For universities to educate students, there ought to be a body of knowledge which can be disseminated. This body of knowledge is neither revealed to anyone, nor mined from the core of the earth. Knowledge is created. And this is done so by intellectuals.

It is in creating knowledge that universities can take their pride of position. Universities which do not create knowledge would remain all, but in name, high schools.

The need to continuously create knowledge emerges from the basic belief that there is always more truth to be found than what we have at the moment - truth in the sciences, truth in the social sciences and truth in all aspects of human life. The quest for truth, and getting on to truth, has marked the major advances of human society. It is the bitter history of the fate of those searching for truth from which we learn that the search for truth is not a simple or trouble-free matter. Our history is riddled with hundreds losing their lives who refused to succumb to the then prevailing orthodoxies - on matters ranging far and wide as religion/god, sciences, and dynasties. In many countries they still lose their lives. And they will continue to lose their lives as long as one believes that we already have enough knowledge and truth that there is to be found, and that any further search for it would be senseless or even damaging.

No monopoly on knowledge
Afterall, there is no hitherto existing truth which, at least in principle, is not amenable to falsification. Which means that no individual, no organisation, no academic, no university, no church, no denomination, no government, and least of all, no political party has any monopoly on knowledge. Each and every newly acquired knowledge and truth has the potential of becoming orthodoxy. Each orthodoxy is challengeable. And challenged they should be, for without such challenge, human society will stagnate.

In my inaugural lecture to the University of Fiji students and staff in March 2005, I had stated that one key element starting the search for truth and knowledge is dissent. Without dissent there is not likely to be any further knowledge gained or created. And freedom to dissent is the fundamental freedom that the community of intellectuals advance.

Dissent, obviously, leads to controversy. And controversy is the first step in coming up, or expecting to come up, with something better than what we already have.

But who is it that is entrusted with this responsibility? Is it the student? Is it the academic? Or is it the management of the universities?

For students the lines are pretty clearly drawn.

For academics, however, the matter is not as simple as it may sound. But before I examine this, let me delve on the matter of university management. Most credible universities hire management teams which are essentially academics. In any case, notwithstanding the more recent trend of making business managers the mangers of universities, the fact has remained that the head of management of a university is not only the head of management; s/he is also the academic head of the institution. As such, they must be included as academics; indeed as academic leaders.

And for academics, academic freedom is not absolute in all respects. When one promotes academic freedom for the academics, one is not giving the academics a general license to say or do what ever they wish to.

Treading the path of discovery
There are two components of an academic life: that of creating knowledge and that of disseminating knowledge. A central purpose of academics is to tread the path of discovery of new knowledge. This is done by research, scholarship and critical inquiry. It is in their role of creators of knowledge that academics deserve absolute freedom.

The limits to academic freedom, however, emerge from this basic freedom to research. It is the freedom to disseminate the outcomes of their research or of knowledge within the area of a person's expertise - within the realms of an academic's own chair - that ought to be protected. This freedom does not give an authority to peddle ones private views, unsupported by inquiry, research and scholarship, under the guise of academic work.

Sometime after leaving USP in 1999, through private emails, I asked some of my erstwhile USP colleagues to exercise responsibility in using their titles to peddle unresearched opinions. This got me in trouble with them; one doesn't speak to me even now, for when left with no sound arguments against me, they still argue that I either was attacking their academic freedom or should have left them alone by not falsifying their public utterances.

But no. All that I was espousing was what I came to know later as the third tenet of the American Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, which states that while members of a learned profession are citizens, they still need to exercise this right of citizenship judiciously.

Academics have a special position in the society. This position emanates, in large part, due to academic freedom. This privilege of special position imposes special obligations on them. As scholars the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. As citizens, they ought to be free to do what a citizen could. But they should not - never, I said - flag their PhDs and their academic titles to peddle views which are way out of line with their chair, or which are totally unresearched and unsupported by reasoned inquiry. Academic positions and titles do not give one the freedom over and above all others. Academics need to display that essential trait of accuracy, well-reasoned positions in their public utterances. Anything short will be an abuse of the freedom they are given.

But one only would be able to judge whether there is any abuse of academic freedom by looking at the content of the statements, not before. The quality of the content ought to be judged by the standards of the profession, established by the community of scholars qualified by training and expertise to set the standards.

Should Tony Tarr, therefore, speak? I say: he has the right to do so. Should Tony Tarr speak at the Grand Fijian Coalition meeting? I say: yes, he has the right to do so, and it is a right which we must encourage that he exercise. Our role ought to be to judge him by the content of what he states, not by whether he exercises his right to speak.

We must protect that right to create and disseminate knowledge to the last of our breaths. By curbing Professor Tarr's right of freedom to create and disseminate knowledge, one would be destroying the very foundation of a maturing society. Variety, diversity, dissent, controversy - all founded on informed scholarship and inquiry, is what gives Fiji hope. The freedom to think, and to research and disseminate the findings are indispensable for the discovery of knowledge and truth, including political truths.

* Dr Ganesh Chand is a former USP academic and a founder of the University of Fiji. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organisations he may be associated with.