Academic freedom critical: IIM-C’s Board has done a disservice to the institution

Abstract

It is unfortunate that even as the government has come out with a law – the IIM Act of 2017 – to assure independence of the Indian Institutes of Management, IIM-Calcutta should go the other extreme and come up with a code of conduct for the faculty that curtails their academic freedom. Ironically, while the IIM-C code probably stems from the belief that the rules have to mirror the ones that apply to bureaucrats since both get paid by the government, the courts have made a very clear distinction.