Policies on Faculty Rights & Responsibilities in the Classroom

As a public institution, UC San Diego must maintain a strong commitment to academic freedom and constitutionally-protected freedom of expression; however those freedoms are not absolute and have important limits given our mission of delivering and educational experience that is accessible to all.

The principal policies that apply to these matters are linked below.

APM 015 – the Faculty Code of Conduct

The University seeks to provide and sustain an environment conducive to sharing, extending, and critically examining knowledge and values, and to furthering the search for wisdom. Effective performance of these central functions requires that faculty members be free within their respective fields of competence to pursue and teach the truth in accord with appropriate standards of scholarly inquiry.

Regents Policy 2301: Policy on Course Content

It is The Regents' policy that no campus, no academic college, no department, and no instructor distort the instructional process in a manner which deviates from the responsibilities inherent in academic freedom. The right of students to have their classes held on the regularly scheduled basis and to be taught by the instructor whose responsibility it is to teach the course in question is to be upheld.

Regents Policy 4403: Statement of Principles Against Intolerance

The mission of the University is to promote discovery and create and disseminate knowledge, to expand opportunities for all, and to educate a civil populace and the next generation of leaders. The University therefore strives to foster an environment in which all are included, all are given an equal opportunity to learn and explore, in which differences as well as commonalities are celebrated, and in which dissenting viewpoints are not only tolerated but encouraged. Acts of hatred and other intolerant conduct, as well as acts of discrimination that demean our differences, are antithetical to the values of the University and serve to undermine its purpose.

Regents Policy 4408: Public and Discretionary Statements by Academic Units

Upholding the values of freedom of speech and inquiry are core values of the University of California. Under the First Amendment and principles of academic freedom, faculty members, individually and collectively, have the right to express their views. While individual members of the University community are free to express constitutionally protected viewpoints through all non-official channels of communication, long-standing principles of academic freedom have recognized that when faculty members speak or write as individuals, they should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution. This Policy sets forth the responsibilities of and procedures for Academic Campus Units when issuing public statements.

APM 010: Academic Freedom

UC Academic Personnel Manual (APM) Section 010, Academic Freedom

The University of California is committed to upholding and preserving principles of academic freedom. These principles reflect the University’s fundamental mission, which is to discover knowledge and to disseminate it to its students and to society at large. The principles of academic freedom protect freedom of inquiry and research, freedom of teaching, and freedom of expression and publication. These freedoms enable the University to advance knowledge and to transmit it effectively to its students and to the public. The University also seeks to foster in its students a mature independence of mind, and this purpose cannot be achieved unless students and faculty are free within the classroom to express the widest range of viewpoints in accord with the standards of scholarly inquiry and professional ethics. The exercise of academic freedom entails correlative duties of professional care when teaching, conducting research, or otherwise acting as a member of the faculty.

APM 011: Academic Freedom, Protection of Professional Standards, and Responsibilities of Non-Faculty Academic Appointees

UC Academic Personnel Manual (APM) Section 011, Academic Freedom, Protection of Professional Standards, and Responsibilities of Non-Faculty Academic Appointees

The fundamental mission of the University is to advance knowledge, to disseminate knowledge to its students and to society at large, and to foster in its students a mature independence of mind. In pursuit of this mission, the University depends upon professional contributions not only by its faculty, but also by its non-faculty academic appointees.

Article 3 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement with the AFT (Unit 18)

Academic freedom safeguards must be accompanied by an equally demanding standard of academic responsibility, requiring responsible service, consistent with the objectives of the University.