It appears that seven universities now have adopted a version of the University of Chicago’s Kalven Principle mandating institutional neutrality (“IN”): the dictum that no political or ideological statements should come from a university save statements about issues endangering the mission of the university. (Faculty are, of course, always free to speak on their own, but not as representatives of an “official view”.) Now it looks as if we can add two more schools to the total: UCLA and the University of Wisconsin system.
This is still far fewer than the 110 schools that have adopted a version of Chicago’s “Free Expression” principle, but I think the tide is turning: colleges are realizing that it’s not to their benefit to weigh in on debatable issues of the day. At any rate, two years ago the University of Chicago was the only school in North America with an institutional neutrality policy.
FIRE needs to start keeping a list of the IN schools, which include these:
The University of Chicago
Simon Fraser University (in Canada: see also here for a discussion of the problems with their statement)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
Vanderbilt University
Columbia University,
Stanford University
The University of Pennsylvania; and the two new ones mentioned here:
UCLA
The University of Wisconsin (whole system)
Now some of the IN policies adopted by these schools have problems, but they’re aiming in the right direction: buttressing free speech by ruling out “official” statements from that could inhibit people in the University from speaking their minds,
Click below to see the story of how UCLA’s Chancellor has accepted a principle of institutional neutrality confected by a University committee:
A short excerpt that gives a link to UCLA’s recommendations:
On Sept. 12, UCLA announced that Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt has accepted a recommendation from a working group that the university should not weigh in on political matters.
The working group, headed by UCLA School of Law Dean Michael Waterstone, submitted a recommendation — accepted in full by Interim Chancellor Hunt — that moving forward, “UCLA’s chancellor, executive vice chancellor and provost, vice chancellors, vice provosts and deans should not make public statements on societal, public and political matters, unless those matters directly affect the university’s ability to support a research and educational environment where free expression thrives.” Such institutional statements, the recommendation explained, “can imply a false sense of unanimity about a given topic, stifle the free exchange of ideas, and risk making parts of our diverse community feel silenced or unheard. A focus on these kinds of statements can also divert university leaders’ attention away from their core responsibilities and pursuit of institutional goals.”
The working group’s report elaborated that “whether — and if so, how — a contentious issue relates to this essential mission of the university will itself be disputed at times; as with any general rule, this one would require university officials to exercise judgment in good faith, subject to critique by community members,” adding that in borderline cases, “the presumption should be for not issuing a statement.”
A pretty big problem here: the policy should apply more widely—to departments, center, units, or any moiety of the university, including libraries, museums, and so on. It is because the issue of department statements was unclear that in 2020 our late President Bob Zimmer clarified that Kalven applied to all University departments and units.
I found the University of Wisconsin news in, of all place, the Times of Israel, but below that you can find the official UW statement, provided by Greg Mayer, who teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Parkside. The new policy came into being after a cowardly UW chancellor, Mark Mone, made an invidious deal with protestors. Click to read:
An extract:
University of Wisconsin leaders must limit their public statements to matters that affect school operations and maintain neutral viewpoints under a new policy that system administrators released Friday.
UW system spokesperson Mark Pitsch said in an email to The Associated Press that the policy will take effect immediately and doesn’t need the approval of the board of regents. Asked what drove the policy’s creation, Pitsch pointed to language in the policy that states the restrictions are necessary in order to uphold academic freedom and an environment where ideas can compete freely.
The move comes after UW-Milwaukee Chancellor Mark Mone struck a deal in May to end pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel campus protests. The university agreed to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and discuss cutting ties with Israeli companies.
The deal drew intense criticism from Jewish groups. UW system President Jay Rothman also took Mone to task over the deal, posting on X that campuses need to remain viewpoint-neutral and make sure actions on campus have consequences.
Rothman is also trying to stay on good terms with Republicans who control the Legislature in the hopes of securing an $855 million boost for the system in the next state budget. . . .
It is often fear of Republican legislatures that brings these policies into being (and, indeed, Chancellore Mone is an invertebrate), but I don’t care where institutional neutrality comes from so long as it’s put into place with proper wording (yes, it should apply to all “units” of a university) and restrictions (yes, statements are permitted on rare occasions).
The official Wisconsin policy is here, with this extract:
Institutional statements issued by university leaders should be limited to matters that directly affect the operations and core mission of the university, and should maintain viewpoint neutrality in any reference to any matter of political or social controversy.
Institutional statements may include communications on the impact of proposed or enacted regulations, legislation, or court decisions that materially affect the operations and core mission of the university. Such institutional statements may also express a position of support or opposition only when authorized by the president or chancellor.
. . .Where there is reasonable disagreement about whether an event or issue directly affects the operations or core mission of the university, university leaders are encouraged to forgo an institutional statement.
What’s good about this is that it is supposed to apply to every UW “unit,” which they define as as “a school, college, department, division, center, institute, program, or other institutional entity”. That is, as far as I know, the most detailed and specific list of university constituents that must adhere to institutional neutrality.
President Maud Mandel at Williams College, who appears reluctant to commit her entire College to institutional neutrality, at least asserted that she was going to stop making statements on politics and ideology, and pinpoints the reason why she changed her mind and adopted IN:
NEW: Williams College President Maud Mandel has developed principles committing her to institutional neutrality.
“I do not believe it is right, or even possible, for me to speak on behalf of the thousands of people who together constitute Williams.” pic.twitter.com/TZFMR8kOo3
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) September 12, 2024
Here’s the Williams statement; click to enlarge:
Unfortunately, the Williams policy appears to apply only to President Mandel herself. For reasons known best to her it doesn’t appear to apply to any other units of the university. But it doesn’t nearly go far enough. It’s time for Williams to step up and extend Mandel’s personal principle to the entire school.
Finally, Vanderbilt, which now is really the #1 free speech school in America as far as I’m concerned (its Chancellor Daniel Diermeier used to be our provost), has updated its policies on demonstration and free expression, and appears to construct a whole program to educate students in free speech and to give them an opportunity to engage in controversial but civil discourse. Click below to read Vanderbilt’s announcement. It links to a lot of different programs and initiatives, so click around on the site to see what this school has done to foster free expression.
Here are some changes, clearly put into place to prevent disruptive demonstrations that impede Vanderbilt’s mission:
Relevant revisions include, but are not limited to, the following:
- The public may not participate in or be invited to participate in campus demonstrations and protests, and the university may request identification from those participating in demonstrations and protests to determine if they are members of the campus community.
- Demonstrations and protests may not occur at times that would require individuals to sleep or gather overnight given safety, logistical and maintenance concerns.
- Installations, defined as “temporary displays, art pieces, symbolic structures or other physical objects,” require reservations and may only be displayed between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. or sundown, whichever is earlier, for no more than three consecutive days.
- Camping, sleeping, preparing to sleep or any other gathering overnight outdoors on campus is prohibited due to safety, logistic and maintenance concerns and to ensure access to university spaces for other groups wishing to make reservations.
All members of the Vanderbilt community are encouraged to review the full Student Handbook in advance of the start of the academic year.
Even Chicago doesn’t follow all these strictures (especially the first and third), and our school hasn’t made its policies nearly as explicit as those given above. Nevertheless, the move towards forestalling disruptions of university life is spreading, though just at the time that pro-Palestinian demonstrators have vowed to be even more disruptive than they were over the last academic year.
Something tells me that we’re not going to see this kind of disruption at Vanderbilt. . . .
h/t Mayaan, Greg Mayer
Excellent. I’m proud of my Alma Mater, UW-Madison. Let’s hope that a few falling stones trigger an avalanche of reason.
My Alma Mater too, and it makes me happy too.
Yes. Institutional neutrality needs to extend to every level where there is a reporting structure—to the President, the provost, the deans, the vice presidents, the basketball coach, the department heads (chairs), the directors of centers. Professors should have the freedom to express political views but, particularly where professors have graduate students whose speech might be suppressed by their public statements, professors need to be cautious as well. My graduate advisor was a well-known public figure, but I never felt pressured to believe what he believed. He had a heterodox group of students, much to his credit.
My guess is that it’s easier to get the top administrators to agree to be institutionally neutral than it is to get the entire institution onto the same page, and the top administrators may be reluctant to impose neutrality by fiat. Hence, some of the limitations of scope that were seeing.
I guess it’s not an accident that some of these institutions are those that suffered (or rather, allowed) the worst disruption from protests in the spring. It will be interesting to see how they deal with any new protests: Do they have any actual will to stop the undermining of their universities’ function and reputation? Or is this adoption of institutional neutrality simply a way for leadership to shrug their shoulders and tell the protesters “Sorry, we can’t say anything about that” while still allowing the tent-city chaos and antisemitism to continue.
I can see that connection between last year’s protests and this year’s institutional neutrality. Interestingly my university adopted institutional neutrality earlier this week but missed almost all of the disruptions last year and had no encampment at all. Instead our radicals went to our cross-town rival Unbelievably Big Campus for all their protest needs. This year the protest movement at my university is similarly tepid. Yesterday our local SJP chapter held a “strike for Palestine” that was so small the campus security folks were able to drown it in a bathtub.
Hilarious. I guess the Unbelievably Big Campus just has so much *space* to accommodate all the tents anyone could want to erect.
No doubt these universities are reacting to last year’s chaos but it’s a move in the right direction.