As I’ve said many times, while over 100 American colleges and Universities have adopted a version of the University of Chicago’s policy of free speech, only a handful have adopted our complementary policy of institutional neutrality (“The Kalven Report”). That policy mandates that our University, its departments, and other “official” units, are forbidden from making statements espousing a specific ideology or taking moral or political stand—except when making such a statement directly supports the university’s mission of teaching, learning, and research. Institutional neutrality—which in our school also involves investment decisions—is designed to buttress freedom of expression: nobody feels that they would be punished if they went against some “official” political statement.
As I wrote in an earlier post announcing that Columbia University also has professed this policy (I’ll believe it when I see it there):
The only universities that have adopted Kalven-esque principles, besides us, number two: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Vanderbilt University. (Vanderbilt’s Chancellor, Daniel Diermeier, is a free-speech advocate who was Provost here before he moved south.) Some professors at Northwestern University have urged adoption of institutional neutrality, but so far little seems to have happened.
(See Diermeier’s WSJ critique of Harvard’s lame attempt at institutional neutrality.)
So, including Chicago, we had four schools adopting a policy that should be universal. But if you count Simon Fraser University near Vancouver, B.C. as “American” (well, it’s North American), now we have five. Read the announcement from Simon Fraser’s President by clicking on the screenshot below.
A transcript (I’ve bolded the important stuff except for the title and subtitle, but some of the bolded stuff is troubling, at least to me):
Message from the President: the Role of Universities in Troubled Times
September 09, 2024
As president of SFU, I am often asked by students, faculty and staff to take a stance on partisan political matters and current events. These requests have increased greatly in the past year, during which this topic has been at the forefront of discussion on university campuses around the world. I want to share some thoughts on why I have come to the view that it is important for university administration not to take public positions on such matters.
Universities are comprised of thousands of students, faculty and staff who all hold unique opinions and views, informed by their scholarly work and lived experiences. I believe that universities need to be a place where people can freely engage in academic inquiry, share ideas, learn from each other, disagree constructively and peacefully protest. And I believe that my role as university president is to help facilitate an environment where people can have robust conversations, including on controversial topics.
In the past, I have made statements related to world events in an attempt to be responsive to issues our community is concerned with. However, I have come to understand that taking a public position on behalf of the university can have a chilling effect on the vigorous discussion and debate of students, faculty and staff. While these statements were intended to provide comfort to and express solidarity with members of the university community, their potential impact on open discussion runs contrary to the university’s purpose. I also recognize that there are many local, global and personal issues affecting community members at any given time, and issuing statements on some topics but not others can further contribute to feelings of exclusion.
If SFU is truly to be a place where people feel comfortable sharing their ideas and participating in meaningful dialogue, the university must be non-sectarian and non-political in principle. In order to facilitate this, I believe that the institution—and senior leadership as representatives of the institution—must refrain from taking public positions on topics unrelated to the business of the university, including partisan matters and world events.
Living by Our Values
Academic freedom, as enshrined in our collective agreements and underscored in What’s Next: The SFU Strategy, creates the conditions for scholars to freely examine, question, teach and learn within their area of study, provided that these actions are based on an honest search for knowledge. To truly live by our core values of academic freedom and critical thinking, we need to hold space for difficult and controversial conversations to take place responsibly and respectfully, as well as defending and protecting the human right to express views within the bounds of the law.
As outlined in What’s Next, we are also committed to embedding the values of equity and belonging in every decision and action. We have a collective responsibility to create a culture of inclusive excellence where all feel welcome, safe, accepted and appreciated. Taken together, academic freedom and inclusive excellence support each other and work together to create a vibrant academic community where everyone feels a sense of belonging.
One of the foundational practices of university life is to be exposed to different points of view, broaden our perspectives and have our beliefs and ideas challenged. This may be uncomfortable, but it is also an important part of being an engaged citizen. As we take on this work, it is important to remember that students, staff and faculty are accountable to SFU’s policies and codes of conduct. If violations of established codes of conduct, university policies or laws occur, we will follow the appropriate processes and procedures to address them.
In a time of increased polarization, we must preserve the vibrancy of our academic community while ensuring that difficult conversations are grounded in care and respect for each other. This is a challenging task, but I believe it is one we can accomplish, together. I want to assure you that senior leaders are committed to doing our part by promoting—not shutting down—healthy dialogue at SFU.
Joy Johnson
Pronouns: she, her, hers
President & Vice-Chancellor
Simon Fraser University
Now the “pronoun statement at the bottom undermines this statement just a tad, but on the whole Dr. Johnson (a researcher in “gender and health”) seems to understand the issues at play. But there is one bit of her message that seriously undermines her statement:
As outlined in What’s Next, we are also committed to embedding the values of equity and belonging in every decision and action. We have a collective responsibility to create a culture of inclusive excellence where all feel welcome, safe, accepted and appreciated.
This statement is indeed a debatable political assertion, because “equity” is not equal opportunity for everyone, which is not only the law but morally correct. Rather, “equity” is a policy of equal outcomes, and is premised on the debatable claim that a lack of equal outcomes must perforce reflect bias against an underrepresented group (e.g., “structural racism” or “structural sexism”). The University of Chicago would never adopt a policy calling for equity, but of course we do have a policy of equality of opportunity. Our University would never assert that it tries to ensure “equity” because that is a debatable statement about ideology.
Further, ensuring that everyone feels “welcome, safe, accepted, and appreciated” may not be possible if there is true freedom of speech. For that kind of speech almost invariably assures that, at least at some times, some students claim that they feel “unsafe” and “unwelcome”. That, for example, was one reason that an art history professor at the private Hamline University in Minnesota was fired for showing images of old Islamic pictures in which Muhammed’s face was unveiled. Showing those pictures (which some Muslims feel is disrespectful or even blasphemous) made some students feel “unsafe,” and that “they didn’t belong.” (The professor sued Hamline and, I think, got an other job.)
Finally, “inclusive excellence,” though it links to an explanation of its meaning, is really a slippery concept. In many cases where students and groups differ in achievement, the words “inclusive” and “excellence” may not be compatible.
So this statement is a sort-of acceptance of Kalven, but shows some unsettling signs of wokeness. For the time being we’ll see what happens at Simon Fraser. It is a public university, but there’s no First Amendment in Canada.
The link was sent to my reader Mike, who is associated with Simon Fraser. Mike said this in an email:
I wanted to share some good news. My university president today publicly embraced institutional neutrality for the university and its senior leadership. (See below).
We don’t have a real policy yet, we don’t know how far down the administrative structure this neutrality will extend, and I don’t know whether this or a different message was sent to our students at the same time. But I hope clarifying those things will be a next step. It’s a huge improvement over the past 5 years in which the president created a new vice-president-level DEI infrastructure and pursued other initiatives that have chilled free expression by choosing sides on controversial topics including Hamas terrorism. So although there is work to do this is good news and a good day for my university.The people most responsible for this positive development are the faculty leaders of our Heterodox Academy Campus Community at SFU. Our group has politely, publicly, and insistently urged our colleagues and administrators to back off from adopting public positions on policy or cultural issues on behalf of everyone at the university, and we have extolled the virtues of academic freedom of expression. We think that public campaign has borne its first fruit. I hope its effects will continue to be felt (a real policy, extended to students, and extended down to the level of department chairs).
Mike’s statement about the President setting up a DEI infrastructure is further unsettling. I hope this is good news for Simon Fraser, but, as a cynic, I found the President’s statement worrisome. The first sign that Dr. Johnson means what she says it that she has to dismantle or cut way back on the DEI business. For DEI itself, or at least the ideology behind its most common implementations, is itself ideologically debatable. Remember, the “E” stands for “equity.”
Always worthwhile to review these topics – thanks.
A few British universities have adopted institutional neutrality. Of the influential Russell Group (24 of the leading UK universities) https://russellgroup.ac.uk/about/our-universities/
there are four: Queen Mary University of London, Edinburgh, London School of Economics, and Imperial College. QMUL and Imperial only signed up to neutrality recently as a consequence of the requirement under the Higher Education Freedom of Speech Act (2023) to update their FoS Code of Practice. The HEFOSA was not completely implemented at the time of the recent general election, and the incoming Labour government have frozen its further implementation. Not all universities had completed revising their codes, and in any case most did not include a statement of neutrality. So I don’t imagine there will be any more Russell Group universities signing up to institutional neutrality in the short term.
During the racial reckoning of 2020 the university president hired her black friend to advise on antiracism. The result was creation of a new vice-president portfolio that includes a new EDI infrastructure:
https://www.sfu.ca/vp-people-equity-inclusion/portfolio.html#EDIOffice
It’s mostly pronouns and land acknowledgments. One has to dig deep to find its main purpose, which is to fulfill SFU’s commitments to race-based hiring of faculty members. Here the new VP’s role is more clearly explained as “responsible for advancing black flourishing.” Drilling down, in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’, one finds this report
https://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/edi/reports/Simon%20Fraser%20University_2024%20Scarborough%20Charter%20Progress%20Report.pdf
which explains the university’s plan for race-based hiring of at least 30 faculty members just for being black or indigenous. This process is going on now, including at least two active job searches in other departments in my Faculty of Science.The report explains that this is all perfectly legal, but its absence from university or department web sites shows how not-very-proud everyone is of this shameful behaviour. Diversity hiring like this is apparently good, but also we’re not supposed to notice, or point out who among us was a diversity hire.
So yes I think this was progress, but as Jerry notes it’s not unalloyed progress. We have a long way to go.
[edit to add] One way to make progress is to create a Heterodox Academy Campus Community. HxA supports this kind of positive activism toward productive disagreement and open debate. Working within a group like this can embolden those like me who are naturally reticent (universities select for faculty members who are conflict-averse) and make it easy to recognize like-minded colleagues and to speak out.
Congratulations Mike to you and your HxA colleagues in getting this far. A major milestone.
Thanks for this. I’m an SFU graduate (1973) but have not had any connection with SFU since.
Preferred pronoun statements and race-based hiring: I’m unimpressed.
I agree with Jerry. You can’t be just a little bit pregnant, or so I understand. Strong adherence to any belief may serve the same societal needs and live in the same part of the brain as religion. She may have seen the light on institutional neutrality on most political scuffles but may not yet understand that requiring the educational community to adhere to her DEI philosophy both compels all on campus to espouse her chosen cultural beliefs on this issue and discourages dissenters from expressing a belief in equality of opportunity rather than outcomes. Very human and rather sad.
All Canadian universities have bought into the idea of indigenization. It’s a national obsession, even if no settler knows exactly what will be demanded of him in operationalizing it. This is a partisan activist political viewpoint and, one would think, would violate the principle of institutional neutrality on its face. However, the universities regard indigenization as central to their core academic mission from land acknowledgements on down, which puts statements of institutional fealty to it beyond rebuke by Kalven. More specifically, indigenization of the curriculum and the professoriat (more indigenous history and mathematics courses and more indigenous professors to teach them) requires a robust “Didn’t Earn It” apparatus. So DEI is also ring-fenced away from Kalven scrutiny.
“Indigenous … mathematics courses”? I’d like some easily-digestible* references. I’m ok with with using Indian (or any other) examples, e.g. counting shells on a necklace. But beyond basic arithmetic and geometry I am dumbfounded as to what indigenous mathematics could possibly be about. I suspect there’s no there there.
* In both senses: not pomo obscurantism, and not causing me to lose my lunch.
https://indigenousmathematicians.org/podcast/
I cite Podcast #2 with Dr. Edward Doolittle because I have heard him speak on this theme before. He is of mixed English and Mohawk parentage and has a PhD in regular mainstream math (which he says we settlers call “Eurocentric” or “globalized” math, but I have never heard anyone call it either of those pejoratives.) He’s an associate professor in the First Nations University which is a federated college of Saskatchewan’s University of Regina. He tries to address what indigenous mathematics might be beginning at 7:05. The interviewer is clueless and doesn’t know how (or doesn’t dare) to ask probing questions to see if there is any there there. He argues that aboriginal people must have had lots of math in their oral traditions but it has all been lost due to residential schools and needs to be re-discovered. This is one goal of indigenizing the curriculum: to discover what was there.
Thanks. I read the transcript, and with a charitable interpretation there is a little bit of there there. Doolittle admits that indigenous math is not suitable for most mathematical subjects, e.g. “I struggle to introduce indigenization into calculus…. [E]very time I talk about history or tell stories […] in my calculus math class or my statistics math class, the students just shut down.” So IM is clearly mostly history and anthropology. The one success he mentions is teaching Math 101, an introductory class mainly taken by budding elementary school teachers. A pretty low bar IMO.
And re “globalized math”, he explicitly links it to globalisation, which of course is Bad. In contrast, IM is localised, varying among local oral traditions. He considers this Good. Personally I prefer to say “universal math(s)”, since the inhabitants of Omicron Persei 8 must surely have differently named but otherwise identical versions of the Chinese remainder theorem, Egyptian fractions, etc. etc.
And finally, re his special pleading that all the oral tradition’s more-advanced math(s) left no trace because the entire oral tradition was suppressed by the Whites, I call bullshit.
Thanks for that, Barbara. Much appreciated.
No problem, Leslie; I’m glad you liked it. The moral of the story is Don’t Mess With Maths.
This is certainly a surprise coming from SFU, though a very welcome one. To give it teeth in relation to DEI I guess will require pushback on some specific issue (e.g. the wording of job advertisements) whose contradiction of institutional neutrality is, apparently, not yet obvious to some people.
“There’s no First Amendment in Canada” is of course strictly true, but Canada does have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms embedded in the Constitution that includes “freedom of expression” as a fundamental right. In theory this provides broader protection than just speech, but as in the US, fundamental rights are open to judicial interpretation and the Canadian Supreme Court has upheld some limits to expression (e.g., hate speech laws) that wouldn’t be tolerated in the US.
In addition to judicial review, the big Achilles heel of our Charter rights is the provincial Human Rights Commission. In BC, the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner is an arm of the legislature, partially independent of the elected government, that pursues a progressive policy agenda through quasi-judicial human rights tribunals (cf. Jessica Yaniv). Their mandate is not to promote freedom of speech or other Charter rights. Instead, their mandate is
“To address the root causes of inequality, discrimination and injustice in B.C. by shifting laws, policies, practices and cultures. We do this work through education, research, advocacy, inquiry and monitoring.”
https://bchumanrights.ca/about-us/mandate/
Their most controversial approach to addressing inequality (and that is saying something) is to provide waivers for companies or organizations (like my university) to discriminate against some job applicants on the basis of race or ethnicity.
“Under B.C.’s Human Rights Code, the Human Rights Commissioner has the power to designate special programs. A “special program” is meant to address disadvantages that certain groups or individuals experience in British Columbia. This goal is achieved by treating those groups in ways which would normally violate the Human Rights Code. This is legal when the initiative helps to address inequality that certain groups experience.”
My university will use that special-program cover to hire dozens of indigenous or black faculty members based on their racial identities. It’s widely expected that most or all of those new hires will come from somewhere else (including from universities in Africa), and thus fail to address disadvantages experienced by people who actually live in BC. Also we will all have to not notice that these new folks are diversity hires. Some of them will be excellent scholars but all will be hired under a cloud.