The Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center at
New York University
New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin.
In 1832, th ...
's
Tamiment Library
The Tamiment Library is a research library at New York University that documents radical and left history, with strengths in the histories of communism, socialism, anarchism, the New Left, the Civil Rights Movement, and utopian experiments. The R ...
is named after
Frederic Ewen, an author, teacher, and an outspoken advocate for
civil liberties and
intellectual freedom
Intellectual freedom encompasses the freedom to hold, receive and disseminate ideas without restriction. Viewed as an integral component of a democratic society, intellectual freedom protects an individual's right to access, explore, consider, and ...
. A much-loved professor of literature at
Brooklyn College, Ewen's vigorous advocacy of freedom of thought and egalitarian principles ran into the wall of
McCarthyism, and in 1952 he was forced to resign from his post at Brooklyn College.
About Frederic Ewen,"
NYU Libraries: Tamiment Library & Robert F. Wagner Archives website. Accessed Dec. 12, 2013.
Aims
The aims of the Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center are:
# To promote research and writing about academic freedom
Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teac ...
, its history, and the connection between past and present; to explicate the role that academic freedom plays in the university, the public schools, and in the fabric of American life. The Center seeks to encourage and support scholarship that links the struggle to defend academic freedom to broader issues of civil liberties, and to the role of the university in a free society.
# To organize and sponsor public forums and events to discuss and explain the meaning of academic freedom, the essential role it plays in advancing and protecting democratic values, and to analyze contemporary developments that may undermine the viability of the university as a citadel for the protection of the free exchange of knowledge and ideas, without the threat of external pressures.
# To promote the scholarly study of academic freedom by offering a yearly competitive fellowship to support a scholar, student, or filmmaker working in this area.
# To provide information, resources, and research support that will advance the cause of academic freedom in the United States and worldwide. In this regard, the Ewen Center builds upon and strengthens the Tamiment Library's ties with scholars, students and public historians working on the history of academic freedom, and on policy issues relating to the protection of academic freedom.
References
External links
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{{New York University
New York University
Academic freedom