‘NO VACCINATION, NO ENROLLMENT POLICY’
with valid grounds on citing ACADEMIC FREEDOM
Academic freedom is a value highly prized in public policy.
RA 7722 mandates CHEd to “ensure and protect academic freedom;” it commands CHEd to
“promote its exercise and observance…” (Sec. 2). In fact, it issues an explicit “Guarantee of
Academic Freedom” in Sec. 13, “Nothing in this act shall be construed as limiting the academic
freedom of universities and colleges.” It is as if it foresaw regular attacks on academic freedom.
RA 7722 guarantees academic freedom in implementation of a Philippine Constitutional
guarantee: “Academic freedom shall be enjoyed in all institutions of higher learning” [Art. XIV,
Sec. 5(2)].
Here, it may be noted that academic freedom is enjoyed in institutions of higher education. This
is not enjoyed in the same way by basic education institutions. The implication of course is that
in the governance of higher educational institutions (HEIs) this Guarantee of Academic Freedom
precisely be observed. It may be appropriate for the Department of Education through its top-
down governance structure to prescribe curricular content in all its levels of basic education. This
is not appropriate in higher education precisely because of the Guarantee of Academic Freedom.
Academic freedom means the liberty of schools or public officials to teach, pursue, and discuss
knowledge without restriction or interference. Academic freedom refers to the freedom of
university professors and the university administrators to function autonomously, without
interference from the government. It also refers to the freedom of individual teachers to not
suffer interference by the administrators of the university. These two freedoms can come into
conflict. The academic institution enjoys a position of supremacy in addressing curriculum
content. Academic freedom does not license uncontrolled expression which is detrimental to the
institution's proper functioning. It helps the teachers and students to express their ideas in school
without religious or political or institutional restrictions. This is an indispensable characteristic of
an institution of higher education.
Academic freedom as the protection of open communication in the processes of teaching does
not restrict the public authority to control the educational program and the place where it occurs.
Such schools operating at such times and places with such curricula as the elected
representatives of the people shall determine will exist; but involuntary restrictions on the
individual liberty of teachers and students to communicate, directly and indirectly, where such
open expression is consistent with the attained level of educational development, are matters of
constitutional concern.
An articulation of the breadth of the academic freedom of an institution of higher learning is
unbeatable: It is the right to determine who should teach, whom to teach, what to teach and
how to teach. In several cases, our own Supreme Court has invoked this doctrine and has upheld
the right of the university to determine, on academic grounds, whom to admit to its courses of
study. Thus, it follows that appurtenant to academic freedom is the right to set admission
requirements. One of these can very well be testing for the use of or habituation to dangerous
drugs. In the landmark case of Garcia v. Loyola School of Theology (1975), inevitably cited in all
discourses on academic freedom, our High Court said of the right of the institution to determine
admission policies:
“It is free from outside coercion or interference save possibly when the overriding public welfare
calls for some restraint. It has a wide sphere of autonomy certainly extending to the choice of
students. This constitutional provision is not to be construed in a niggardly manner or in a
grudging fashion. That would be to frustrate its purpose, nullify its intent.”
Lest it be theorized that state universities, as instrumentalities of national government, do not
enjoy the same latitude of freedom in regard to decisions about the admission of students, it
should suffice to heed the doctrine of the Supreme Court in University of the Philippines v. Ligot-
Telan (1993) where the UP’s right to refuse admission to a student on disciplinary grounds was
held to be well encompassed by the scope of its academic freedom.
So, while there is no doubt that the institution may, in the exercise of its regulatory authority,
issue guidelines on mandatory vaccination, a university may not be begrudged its right to exercise
its academic freedom by requiring of all of its students, as a condition for enrollment, submission
to a vaccination. There certainly is a right to education, and, arguably, a right to higher education,
but there certainly is no such thing as a right to be admitted into a university. Determining
whether a student may or may not be admitted constitutes an exercise of discretion on the part
of the university—particularly its instructional corps—and as such, by long settled jurisprudence,
cannot be compelled by mandamus.
That a student’s privacy is intruded into by the vaccination, there will hardly be argument, but
when one seeks admission into a university, even a state university, one’s expectation of privacy,
on which rests claims to the penumbral right of privacy, cannot include holding the university’s
inquiry at bay into whether the applicant for admission has undergone vaccination. The student
does not shed his rights at the university’s threshold to be sure, but neither can he insist that the
university shed all of its prerogatives when he comes knocking, seeking admission. And the claim
to a violation of rights loses even more force when the university shows that the purpose of
vaccination is not principally to exclude those who did not receive vaccinations, but to lead them,
if found necessary, to the needed intervention—medical, psychological and physical.
So what is the extent of academic freedom?
This is an attempt to study the extent of applicability of academic freedom in Philippine education
in terms of its concept and development. The term has been defined as the freedom of the
teacher or research worker in higher institutions of learning to investigate and discuss the
problems of his science and to express his conclusions through publication or in the instructions
of the students. Political or ecclesiastical authorities or administrative officials of the institution
are barred from interfering with this right of the teacher unless the same is contrary to
professional ethics. Academic freedom is exclusively the domain of academic community.
Academic freedom may be viewed from two standpoints such as the point of view of the
educational institution and the point of view of the members of the academe. The first point of
view speaks of the freedom of the institution to determine the qualification of its teachers, the
course of study and admission policies. From the standpoint of the members of the academe,
academic freedom is the freedom of the teacher or research workers in institutions of higher
learning to investigate and discuss the problems of his science and to express his conclusions
either through publications or in instructions of the students, without interference from political
or ecclesiastical authority, or from administrative officials of the institution. Hence, said policy is
in perfect coherence to the limits of the academe’s practice of academic freedom.
