CAVE 2022 PUBLIC LECTURE: PROF. ADRIENNE STONE (MELBOURNE), "ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY"Adrienne Stone
Sydney
Australia
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Academic freedom is essential to the functioning of a university. Its principal purpose is to advancement of knowledge through teaching and research, which in turn brings enormous public benefit. This lecture will take a close look at a second rationale for academic freedom that lies in the connections between academic freedom and democracy. It will be argued that universities play an important role in support for democracy as independent sources of information and knowledge. In doing so, they are a valuable democratic resource for all citizens – and not just for the members of a university community.
In turn, however, universities themselves require a commitment to democratic government in a full sense. That is, universities thrive in societies that are truly committed to free academic inquiry, that are prepared to wear the discomfort that challenging independent thinkers can bring. As a result, academic freedom has a constitutional dimension and scholars should conceive of themselves and their universities as part of the infrastructure of democracy.
About Prof. Stone:
Adrienne Stone holds a Chair at Melbourne Law School where she is also Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor and Director of the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies. She researches in the areas of constitutional law and constitutional theory with particular attention to freedom of expression and academic freedom. She is a Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellow and her Laureate Program on Comparative Constitutional Law assembles a research team to investigate challenges to liberal democratic constitutionalism. She is the President of the International Association of Constitutional Law and is an elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and Australian Academy of Law. Her most recent book is Open Minds: Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech (2021) co-authored with Carolyn Evans.
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