michael_nielsen

... freedom in the context of their employment, not that grant agencies have a duty to fund them. And so too in the context of freedom of where to publish.

Not sure why non-standard interpretation of academic freedom. I was not saying grant agencies have duty to fund researchers. Researchers should be employed & paid by universities. Don't know about US, but in UK now researchers' job depends on getting government/industry grants.

Your argument: grant agencies are violating academic freedom for academics to publish where they choose. I'm pointing out that the exact same argument would show that grant agencies violate academic freedom to choose what they work on. Do you see this?

I see this. I think the issue in both cases is who gets to make the decision (whether a work is published in a particular outlet/to whom a grant is awarded): peers or government agencies? What control does the government have over such decisions?

Oh, I quite agree: that's a great set of questions! And one where a strong case could be made against (and also for). I just think that tying it to academic freedom is a weak approach, since we've already ceded veto power over research directions to grant agencies.

Basically, I don't think anyone's going to pay much attention to an argument of the form "OA policies from grant agencies violate academic freedom." It's too far from how academic freedom is construed. On the other hand, there is a strong argument to be made...

... that it's an encroachment of the government on the research community. And that's worth carefully balancing all the pros and cons, in detail.

I agree with what you say. However, I write mainly about open access and have developed an interest in academic freedom (based on what I see happening to UK universities, context is different in the US). It may be a weak argument, but I am more observer than activist.