"KNOWLEDGE INSTITUTIONS"

Professor Vicki Jackson

 July 1, 2024
"Journalism and Academia: Knowledge Institutions Buttressing Constitutional Democracy"

"Knowledge institutions play a critical role in maintaining constitutional and democratic guardrails, encouraging the pursuit of reliable knowledge, providing the public with accurate information, and fostering informed debate about office-holders, candidates and public policies. ... 

Knowledge institutions are public and private entities that have a central purpose of pursuing knowledge—creating, disseminating, and preserving it.fn2 They include universities, libraries, museums, the press, government offices charged with collecting and reporting data, and independent research institutes. As organized entities with continuity over time, they pass on to new generations their cultures of knowledge-seeking and verification. Knowledge institutions and their active members seek to apply standards of a wide range of intellectual disciplines, differing across fields and institutions. They aspire to apply these standards autonomously, not to reach results tailored to satisfy government or business preferences, but with independence according to the professional norms of their field and institution.fn3

each type of institution employs distinctive mechanisms designed to sort good, accurate reporting from bad, unreliable reporting or good, reliable scholarship from bad, unreliable scholarship. Each knowledge institution has internal mechanisms designed both to reinforce the goal of accuracy at the outset and to provide checks when that goal is not met. At a time when both institutions face serious threats, attention to these mechanisms is of particular importance.

The first principle in the American Association of University Professors’s (AAUP) Statement of Professional Ethics provides that professors’ “primary responsibility . . . is to seek and to state the truth as they see it . . . [and] practice intellectual honesty,” while not allowing “subsidiary interests” to “seriously hamper or compromise their freedom of inquiry.” The ethos of objectivity or impartiality in professional judgment remains an important aspect of both academia and professional journalism, and it may be as dependent on institutional cultures as it is on structural protections of job security.

both journalism and academia have commitments to pursuing genuine knowledge, and both have developed ethical principles, which may be reinforced by standards of conduct adopted by specific institutions (that is, specific newspapers or universities). The ethical standards of both entities include an emphasis on transparency, accuracy, and truth-seeking. 

in the humanities, the American Historical Association says that while historians have much they disagree on, they all agree on some precepts: “All historians believe in honoring the integrity of the historical record. They do not fabricate evidence. Forgery and fraud violate the most basic foundations on which historians construct their interpretations of the past.”

The aggressive critique that follows public disclosure of departures from ethical standards suggests the continued relevance of these norms in both journalism and academia. There are too many such departures. But they attract controversy and critique—through which norms of honest, truth-oriented work can be upheld.

the functions these institutions serve—of attempting honestly and accurately to report on daily events and attempting honestly and accurately to understand the human and natural world in all its manifestations—are essential to good societies. In helping to hold governments accountable, they are of particular importance to constitutional democracies, where decisions by an informed citizenry are at the theoretical foundation of the legitimacy of the state.

2021
Knowledge Institutions in Constitutional Democracies: Preliminary Reflections
 7 Can. J. Comp. & Cont. L. 156 (2021)

Knowledge institutions in constitutional democracy: reflections on ‘the press’ - Harvard Law School | Harvard Law School

August 29, 2019
"Knowledge Institutions in Constitutional Democracies: of Objectivity and Decentralization"
Harvard Law Review (Jackson)

This is a plea for scholars to begin to conceptualize knowledge institutions, working together, as part of a knowledge ecosystem requiring constitutional protection and effective self-monitoring.
Knowledge institutions plainly include colleges and universities, which make up the system of higher education. 
...
The free press is another kind of knowledge institution, of especial importance to the reliable disclosure and evaluation of current events. 
...
Knowledge institutions are not limited to universities and the press, but also include government and nongovernmental offices devoted to the gathering, evaluation, or dissemination of objective facts.  (As discussed below, objectivity may represent more of an aspiration than an attainable goal, but it is possible to strive for more, rather than less, accurate understandings.)  

...
“Knowledge institutions” should not be understood as a branch of constitutional government, but rather as a necessary organ of constitutional democracy, existing across public-private divides.  Knowledge institutions may be public – in addition to government offices discussed above, these include some universities and libraries.  Centrally important public functions may be performed by some government knowledge institutions.  ... Other knowledge institutions are private – as in privately owned newspapers and other news sources, universities, libraries, or research institutes.  Such private institutions have, throughout history, played important roles in preserving knowledge from destruction at the hands of powerful authorities.

...
knowledge institutions play special roles in representative democracies. 
Why do constitutional democracies especially need knowledge institutions, which we can think of as organs of epistemic objectivity?  Unlike in a monarchy or autocracy, where a single or small number of rulers need to be well informed about the world, in a democracy the people as a whole – or at least a sufficient swathe of the people and of their elected representatives – need access to information to participate in governance – to be able to identify patterns of social and economic fact, as well as relevant national and world history that bear on current issues. Knowledge is needed to help develop and evaluate policy positions and distinguish claims that are well founded from those that are not.  Knowledge (including the habits of mind that a good education should produce) is needed to be able to resist manipulations, whether by those in high office, or running for high office, or foreign powers, or others, and – importantly – to be able to evaluate good faith arguments by opposing candidates for public office.  Knowledge is needed to be able to engage in reasoned argument with fellow voters.  Elections and referenda, then, require a knowledge base among voters or those from whom voters take their cues.  And knowledge is needed in order for the rule-of-law to be in effect and for the law to serve justice – so that laws, and how they are enforced, and what their effects are, can be known, and evaluated.  In short, knowledge is needed for virtually all aspects of a constitutional democracy to flourish.

May 1, 2023
"Universities as Knowledge Institutions: A Reply to Professor Jackson"
Professor Tom Ginsburg
10 TEX. A&M L. REV. 667 (2023)

January 2025
Knowledge Institutions and Resisting ‘Truth Decay’ (Chapter 14) - Disinformation, Misinformation, and Democracy

Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Human Rel. Comm'n | 413 U.S. 376 (1973) | Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center

The Changing Ecosystem of News and Challenges for Freedom of the Press by Martha Minow :: SSRN

Constitutional Democracy in Crisis?: Graber, Mark A., Levinson, Sanford, Tushnet, Mark

Professor Mark Graber/University of Maryland Law School

Professor Sanford V. Levinson/University of Texas Law School

 Mark Tushnet - Harvard Law School | Harvard Law School

Part 1 -- Background

Jack Balkin -- "Constitutional Crisis and Constitutional Rot"

Tom Ginsburg & Aziz Z. Huq "Defining and Tracking the Trajectory of Liberal Constitutional Democracy"

Zachary Elkins "IS the Sky Falling? Constitutional Crisis in Historical Perspective"

Ellen Kennedy: "Constitutionall Failure Revisited"

October 5, 2021
Advancing Public Knowledge - Henry Luce Foundation

Amusing Ourselves to Death Summary | GradeSaver (Neil Postman)
Amusing Ourselves to Death - Wikipedia

PressThink: Neil Postman (1931-2003): Some Recollections (Jay Rosen/Salon Oct 9, 2003)

Neil Postman, 72, Mass Media Critic, Dies - The New York Times, Oct 9, 2023

Judges Under Siege: Threats, Disinformation, and the Decline of Public Trust in the Judiciary | The American Law Institute

Remembering Neil Postman (April 28, 2014)

Neil Postman Explains The Modern Media Crisi in 1988 -- C-Span

Neil Postman -- the surrender of culture to technology (1992) -- C-Span

Book Review -- video

The World According to Neil Postman -- VIDEO (2021)

Remembering Neil Postman | The Reformed Presbyterian Witness

Coloring the News: How Political Correctness Has Corrupted American Journalism: Mcgowan, William: 9781893554603: Amazon.com: Books

Life: The Movie by Neal Gabler: 9780375706530 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Paul Starr -- wikipedia   PAUL STARR -- Princeton    Paul Starr, Author at The American Prospect
                 pstar@prospect.org

The Failure of Mandated Disclosure
Omri Ben-Shahar, Carl E. Schneider

Lincoln Caplan | Yale Law School

PROFESSOR CRAIG CALHOUN