Freedom, work, and the public good: why academics are not exceptional

Defenders of academic freedom characteristically claim academics ought to be afforded freedoms not afforded those in other roles or occupations on account of the unique, knowledge-generating status of academic activity and its contribution to the public good. Challenging that claim, this paper argues instead that the capacity for all roles and occupations to benefit the public good of knowledge creation provides justification for granting all workers discretion over work performance, meaningful workplace voice, and the freedom to speak publicly, that the rights typically claimed by academics apply more generally. It advances its challenge by targeting the assumption common to many defenders of academic freedom that academic work’s exceptional nature stems from its ultimate “truth-telling function”, namely that only the academic role pursues the kind of rigorous truth-seeking activities for which worker control is necessary. In doing so, the paper aims both to cast critical light on uninterrogated assertions of academic exceptionalism and to bolster the literature on worker freedoms by offering an epistemic and public-good directed defence of worker rights to accompany defences of such rights from the perspective of justice or individual flourishing.