American academic freedom

Patrick Brennan writes in connection with a controversy involving the Villanova Law School:

In a season in which Villanova is engaged in a dean search, I think it's vital to be unequivocal that Villanova Law faculty enjoy complete academic freedom.  They can write about whatever the heck they want.  I have colleagues who write about all kinds of stuff I regard as truly crazy, and many colleagues advance in print positions that are opposed to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.  That last fact, like the former, is not to my liking, but I accept that it is part of the American university model. 

What about the Catholic university model? In two separate places Ex Corde Ecclesiae mentions academic freedom, as it was explained within Gaudium et Spes, n.59:

Every Catholic University, as a university, is an academic community which, in a rigorous and critical fashion, assists in the protection and advancement of human dignity and of a cultural heritage through research, teaching and various services offered to the local, national and international communities(14). It possesses that institutional autonomy necessary to perform its functions effectively and guarantees its members academic freedom, so long as the rights of the individual person and of the community are preserved within the confines of the truth and the common good.

 and

The Church, accepting "the legitimate autonomy of human culture and especially of the sciences", recognizes the academic freedom of scholars in each discipline in accordance with its own principles and proper methods(28), and within the confines of the truth and the common good.

Let us accept that some may be sincere in the errors they make in their reasoning, and do so in good faith, willing to be corrected by their peers when their errors are pointed out. They should be protected by "academic freedom." But what about those who reach their errors because of false principles which contradict the teachings of the Church? Ex Corde Ecclesiae and Gaudium et Spes do not seem to embrace an absolute notion of academic freedom -- rather it is delimited within the "confines of the truth and the common good." And in a Catholic university, truth should not be limited to that which can be discovered by natural reason, but it extends to what has been given to us through the Church by Divine Revelation. In these documents, free inquiry is protected, but nothing is said about the embrace of errors that precedes inquiry.

American academic freedom may prevail in public and secular and deChristianized schools, and the Church does not have actual authority over such institutions. But what about those institutions which claim to be Catholic and under the authority of the local bishop? What sort of Catholic legal theory fails to recognize that there is an "essential" difference between Catholic and non-Catholic schools which has an effect on how they are run and what is to be considered "right"?

Regarding ethical, legal, and political matters - if someone denies precepts of Natural Law or its authority, and reasons accordingly, should they be allowed to teach at a Catholic institution? I think not.