Book Chronicles Evolution of Academic Freedom at UW-Madison

The famous "sifting and winnowing" statement is memorialized in a Bascom Hall plaque and a new book that examines its legacy.

The birth and evolution of academic freedom at UW–Madison forms the focus of a new book edited by economics Professor Emeritus W. Lee Hansen.

The book, titled Academic Freedom on Trial: 100 Years of Sifting and Winnowing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, features 30 contributors – including faculty, students, alumni, university officials and citizens.

The volume commemorates and sets in modern context a famous statement defending academic freedom issued by the university’s Board of Regents in 1894. The board released the statement after the “trial” of economics professor Richard T. Ely, who had been accused of fomenting labor unrest and discussing “dangerous” theories in his classes.

“The University of Wisconsin,” the statement reads, “should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”

The book discusses the Ely controversy and also examines modern issues of free speech, hate-speech codes, due process and intellectual-property rights. It is being published by the Office of University Publications and distributed by the UW Press. Copies will be available at local bookstores or by calling (800) 829-9559.

Hansen has a long-standing interest in academic freedom issues, especially that of Ely, who was the university’s first economist. “Threats to academic freedom continue here and elsewhere, and increasingly they come from within academe, rather than from outside,” says Hansen. “This makes them all the more divisive as evidenced by the continuing controversies surrounding student and faculty speech codes at UW–Madison.”