In America Departments From the Editor Letters Legal Watch Washington Watch From the Gen. Sec . Nota Bene Reports Report Academic Freedom in the Medical School Adopted by the participants in the conference on Academic Values in the Transformation of Academic Medicine, May 22, 1999. Endorsed in June 1999 by Committee a on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the AAUP Council, and the Eighty-fifth Annual Meeting.
Academic freedom is a core value in the American community of higher learning.
Its protection is a crucial responsibility of university faculties, administrations, and governing boards. While academic freedom clearly safeguards the work of professors and their institutions, its primary purpose is to advance the general welfare. The common good depends upon the free search for truth and its free expression. With the major changes that are currently in process in academic health centers in the teaching of students, in the status of medical school faculty, and in the conditions under which these faculty members work it is urgent that this topic now be addressed. The modern medical school has many of the attributes of a complex, market-driven health care system with professors often acting as entrepreneurs in research and in patient care.