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Ethical Codes and Speech Restrictions: New Scenarios and Constitutional Challenges to Freedom of Teaching at University—The Italian Perspective

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Academic Freedom Under Pressure?

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Abstract

Universities all over the world are adopting rules aimed at protecting sensitive individuals from topics that may cause emotional distress or produce discrimination. Some of these rules even require teachers to warn students of political or religious beliefs expressed in course materials, and to point out “no go areas”. In Italy, this new turn in the ethic of care still only seems a distant possibility, although a number of University ethical codes have been adopted and many guidelines already require the use of a gender-fair language. Are these policies compatible with freedom of teaching under Article 33 of the Constitution? This chapter examines the issue through the Italian case-law.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Early observers of the changes occurring in universities since the 1960s included Clark Kerr, former chancellor of the University of California (Berkeley), and Jürgen Habermas. See Kerr (2001) and Habermas (1968).

  2. 2.

    Baraggia et al. (2017), p. 2.

  3. 3.

    Krücken et al. (2006), p. 7.

  4. 4.

    Kerr (2001), p. 31.

  5. 5.

    See Guri-Rosenblit et al. (2007), p. 373.

  6. 6.

    See Katz and Noddings (1999).

  7. 7.

    Keeling (2014), p. 143.

  8. 8.

    Chemerinsky and Gillman (2017), p. 82.

  9. 9.

    Waldron (2012), pp. 8–9.

  10. 10.

    Waldron (2012).

  11. 11.

    Chemerinsky and Gillman (2017), p. 14.

  12. 12.

    See Trigger Warnings and Academic Freedom: a Pedagogic Perspective by F Magni in this volume.

  13. 13.

    See Donlevy et al. (2019).

  14. 14.

    Statements “at the start of a piece of writing, video, etc. alerting the reader or viewer to the fact that it contains potentially distressing material (often used to introduce a description of such content)”. See “Trigger warning” at www.OxfordDictionaries.com.

  15. 15.

    See Donlevy et al. (2019).

  16. 16.

    Chemerinsky and Gillman (2017), pp. 70–71.

  17. 17.

    Ibid, p. 13.

  18. 18.

    It also includes “freedom in carrying out research and disseminating and publishing the results thereof, freedom to express freely their opinion about the institution or system in which they work, freedom from institutional censorship and freedom to participate in professional or representative academic bodies”, UNESCO recommendation, para. 27.

  19. 19.

    Chemerinsky and Gillman (2017), p. x.

  20. 20.

    More references in De Benedetto (2019), p. 84 ff.

  21. 21.

    Directive of 23.5.2007, G.U. no. 173 (27.7.2007).

  22. 22.

    The Directive suggests, for example, to use the word “persone” (people) instead of “uomini” (men).

  23. 23.

    Disegno di legge S. 1680, XVII Legislature. The Proposal, communicated to the Senate in 2014 and assigned to the proper Commission in 2015, has never been voted.

  24. 24.

    See Art. 4.

  25. 25.

    “I speak, I do not discriminate”.

  26. 26.

    D.R. no. 321, 24.2.2016.

  27. 27.

    Pending publication, the Rector of the University of Milan also adopted a resolution to promote non-discriminatory written and verbal language at all levels in the university.

  28. 28.

    Generi e linguaggi. Linee guida per un linguaggio amministrativo e istituzionale attento alle differenze di genere.

  29. 29.

    Ibid, p. 3.

  30. 30.

    Linee guida per il linguaggio di genere.

  31. 31.

    Ibid, p. 1.

  32. 32.

    Linee guida per la visibilità del genere nella comunicazione istituzionale dell’Università di Bologna.

  33. 33.

    Ibid, p. 4.

  34. 34.

    Ibid, p. 6.

  35. 35.

    According to Art. 33(6): “Higher education institutions, universities and academies have the right to establish their own regulations within the limits laid down by the law.” On university autonomy, see Academic Freedom, University Autonomy (Work in Progress) and Striving towards Accountability – An Italian Perspective by L Violini in this volume.

  36. 36.

    See https://anagrafe.miur.it/, last accessed 20.10.2020.

  37. 37.

    Codice etico di Ateneo, D.R. no. 1636, 23.5.2012.

  38. 38.

    Codice etico e di comportamento, D.R. no. 1408, 1.10.2014.

  39. 39.

    Codice etico e per l’integrità nella ricerca, D.R. no. 224, 18.1.2019. Some values embedded in this code are implemented and specified in another document: Codice per la tutela della dignità e del benessere delle persone nell’organizzazione, D.R. no. 758, 10.2.2020.

  40. 40.

    On freedom of expression see, ex multis, Pace and Manetti (2006); Pino (2008); Scaffardi (2009); Orofino (2014); De Vergottini (2015); Pitruzzella et al. (2017); Vigevani (2018).

  41. 41.

    Italian Constitutional Court, Judgement no. 85/2013.

  42. 42.

    On the limit of public morality, see Cuniberti (2011), p. 33 ff.

  43. 43.

    See Iannuzzi (2018), p. 220.

  44. 44.

    See para. 1.

  45. 45.

    See Orsi Battaglini (1990), p. 96. Peter Häberle noted the same about the German Grundgesetz: see Häberle (1985), p. 329 ff.

  46. 46.

    On this point, see Pototschnig (1971), p. 721 ff.; Cerri (1988), p. 5 ff.; Iannuzzi (2018), p. 220 ff.; Morelli (2019), p. 12.

  47. 47.

    Iannuzzi (2018), p. 222. According to the Italian Constitutional Court, Judgement no. 240/1974: freedom of teaching behaves differently according to the different types and degrees of teaching.

  48. 48.

    See Morelli (2019), p. 12.

  49. 49.

    Italian Constitutional Court, Judgement no. 14/1983.

  50. 50.

    Iannuzzi (2018), p. 221.

  51. 51.

    Sunstein (1996), p. 94.

  52. 52.

    Morelli (2019), p. 12.

  53. 53.

    Orsi Battaglini (1990), p. 100.

  54. 54.

    Orsi Battaglini (1990), p. 101.

  55. 55.

    See Cardone (2015), p. 4.

  56. 56.

    See Galetta (2018), p. 11.

  57. 57.

    “Entities and private persons shall have the right to establish schools and institutions of education, at no cost for the state.”

  58. 58.

    Croce (2010), p. 3.

  59. 59.

    Directive (EC) 2000/78 of the European Council of 27.11.2000 establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation, OJ L 303. See, in particular, Art. 4(2).

  60. 60.

    In two highly debated judgements on the German cases, CJ Judgement (11.9.2018) Case C-68/17 IR v. JQ and CJ Judgement (17.4.2018) Case C-414/16 Vera Egenberger v. Evangelisches Werk für Diakonie und Entwicklung e.V., the Court of Justice of the European Union clarified that: the decision of a church or other organisation, the ethos of which is based on religion or belief, to require its employees to act with loyalty to that ethos must be amenable to effective judicial review. The loyalty requirement must be necessary and objectively dictated, having regard to the ethos of the church, by the nature of the occupational activity concerned or the circumstances in which it is carried out, and must comply with the principle of proportionality.

  61. 61.

    See, for example, ECHR Judgement (23.9.2010) Obst v. Germany, ECHR Judgement (23.9.2010) Schüth v. Germany, ECHR Judgement (3.2.2011) Siebenhaar v. Germany, ECHR Judgement (12.6.2014) Fernández Martínez v. Spain.

  62. 62.

    See Ragone (2014), p. 199 ff.

  63. 63.

    See Lariccia (1972), p. 2177 ff.

  64. 64.

    See para. 6 Considerato in Diritto (CiD), Italian Constitutional Court, Judgement no. 195/1972.

  65. 65.

    ECHR Judgement (20.10.2009) Lombardi Vallauri v. Italy.

  66. 66.

    See Academic Freedom and the Use of Native Languages (the Italian “English-only” Saga and its Downsides) by D-U Galetta in this volume.

  67. 67.

    Art. 2(2)(l) of Law no. 240 (30.12.2010), G.U. no. 10 (14.1.2011), Gelmini law.

  68. 68.

    See para. 4 CiD.

  69. 69.

    Para. 4 CiD.

  70. 70.

    On this distinction see Cardone (2015), p. 3 and 6.

  71. 71.

    Orsi Battaglini (1990), p. 103.

  72. 72.

    Ibid, p. 104.

  73. 73.

    Sunstein (1996), p. 107.

  74. 74.

    See Chemerinsky and Gillman (2017), p. 116 ff.

  75. 75.

    See Chemerinsky and Gillman (2017), p. 159.

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  1. University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Giada Ragone

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  1. Giada Ragone
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  1. German Research Institute for Public Administration, German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Speyer, Germany

    Margrit Seckelmann

  2. University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Lorenza Violini

  3. German Research Institute for Public Administration, German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer, Speyer, Germany

    Cristina Fraenkel-Haeberle

  4. University of Milan, Milan, Italy

    Giada Ragone

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Ragone, G. (2021). Ethical Codes and Speech Restrictions: New Scenarios and Constitutional Challenges to Freedom of Teaching at University—The Italian Perspective. In: Seckelmann, M., Violini, L., Fraenkel-Haeberle, C., Ragone, G. (eds) Academic Freedom Under Pressure?. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77524-7_17

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