Historically, academic freedom developed during the Enlightenment. Early cultures, which viewed education as a system of absorbing a well-defined subject matter, offered little opportunity for speculation. The medieval universities also operated within a field of definite scope, primarily theological, and any teacher or scholar who extended inquiry beyond the approved limits was subject to the charge of heresy. The scientific method of analyzing data and establishing hypotheses, a vital concomitant of academic freedom, was initiated during the Enlightenment , mainly by scholars outside university life such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Voltaire.

It was in the Prussia of Frederick the Great that the new freedom first flourished within the university itself. In England, it was laymen like Jeremy Bentham, David Ricardo, Herbert Spencer, Charles Darwin, and Thomas Huxley who demonstrated the value of free investigation. Before the concept of academic freedom could gain general acceptance, however, it was necessary that education become secularized. It was not until 1826 that the first nonsectarian university was established in London. In the United States the early colleges were also religiously controlled, and there are still some denominational schools that define areas of inquiry. The American Association of University Professors has been active in establishing standards of academic freedom and has investigated cases in which the right was alleged to have been jeopardized.

Bibliography: See R. Hofstadter and W. P. Metzger, The Development of Academic Freedom in the U.S. (1955); R. M. MacIver, Academic Freedom in Our Time (1955, repr. 1967); L. Joughin, Academic Freedom and Tenure: A Handbook of the AAUP (rev. ed. 1969); W. P. Metzger et al., Dimensions of Academic Freedom (1969); S. Hook, ed., In Defense of Academic Freedom (1971); C. Caplan and E. Schrecker, Regulating the Intellectuals (1983); E. Schrecker, No Ivory Tower (1986).