Category: colleges and universities

University of California system professes institutional neutrality, but screws it up

July 25, 2024 • 10:45 am

Do I need to explain once more the principle of institutional neutrality in academia, whereby a university is prohibited from making official statements about politics, morality, or ideology in its announcements or on its website—except in rare situations when such statements are made to further the mission of the University? This principle was originally devised at the University of Chicago, codified in 1967 as the Kalven Report.

The reason for the principle is to avoid chilling or impeding free speech (we have a separate Principle of Free Expression) by making people fearful of angering authorities and endangering their own status at a university. If a department’s website opposed Israel’s war on Hamas, for example, such opinion (or its opposite) would have to be removed here, for it has nothing to do with the mission of the University. (Of course, there are always Pecksniffs who, by judicious word-twisting, can make any position seem relevant to the mission of a university. But really, our mission is teaching, doing research, and promulgating debate and searches for truth.)

While our Principles of Free Expression were published in 2015, they’ve already been adopted by 110 schools, which adhere to them in varying degrees. However, the Kalven Principle, published 48 years earlier, has been adopted by only a handful of other schools, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Vanderbilt University.  Some other schools are contemplating adopting institutional neutrality, but haven’t seemed to push it through.  I’m not sure why, given that freedom of speech and institutional neutrality are mutually supportive, but I suppose schools (and departments, also included in our Kalven Principles) simply can’t resist weighing in on the issues of the day. In fact, even departments at the University of Chicago sometimes can’t resist making statements that seem to violate Kalven, and the administration polices and adjudicates putative violations.

Now the University of California system, as reported by the L.A. Times, is considering adopting institutional neutrality, too, but has gutted the meaning of that principle by watering it down. Click the link below to read, or, if it’s paywalled, find it archived here

Here’s an excerpt from the July 17 article showing how the UC system’s “neutrality” works:

University of California regents voted Thursday to ban political opinion from main campus homepages, a policy initially rooted in concern about anti-Israel views being construed as official UC opinion.

Political opinions may still be posted on other pages of an academic unit’s website, according to the policy approved at the regents meeting in San Francisco. It will take effect immediately.

The main homepage of a campus department, division or other academic unit will be reserved for news about courses, events, faculty research, mission statements or other general information.

Opinion must be published on other pages specifically labeled as commentary, with a disclaimer that they don’t reflect the entire university or campus. Those who want to post statements on their department websites must follow specific procedures and allow faculty members to weigh in through an anonymous vote.

Regent Jay Sures, vice chairman at United Talent Agency, has pushed for such action for the last few years, previously saying he has been troubled by “abuse” and “misuse” of departmental websites featuring anti-Israel sentiment and other opinions that do not reflect official university views.

After initially proposing a more restrictive policy, Sures said the final draft reflects a better balance between free speech and acknowledging both those who want to make statements and those who oppose them.

“This reflects that we value academic freedom, and it provides a very inclusive environment for the individual departments to put out statements and reflecting minority opinions within those departments,” he said.

Sorry, but I find this deeply misguided.  What purpose is served by institutional neutrality on a departmental or division homepage that is violated if you simply click a link on that page?  After all, in California a department or a division can always weigh in on the war, affirmative action, gun control, politics, and so on, on other pages. Suppose the chairman of a sociology department puts up a post condemning Israel for its conduct of the war against Hamas. Even if it’s labeled as “commentary”, who would be foolish enough to think that this will have no effect on the speech of that department? Grad students, junior faculty, and others who are vulnerable will be inhibited from speaking otherwise, even at faculty meetings or in public. After all, your counterspeech could anger the chair, who could then exact retribution, damage your tenure and promotion, and so on.

There are other venues for expressing your opinions as private individuals: they are called “social media.” Or you can write letters to the editor, publish papers, write books, and so on. There is no need to bawl out your political or ideological views on a university website. (As for chairmen and University presidents and provosts, the line is blurred between their private speech and official unviersity speech, and in my view they’d best keep their views on nonacademic stuff to themselves. This is indeed the case at Chicago).

The best course of action is simply to tell people not to use any parts of university websites opinions other than those very relevant to a university’s or a department’s mission. Let us have none of this mishigass about taking votes or putting up disclaimers. That stuff can still chill speech.

A bit more from the article:

Sean Malloy, a UC Merced associate professor of history and critical race and ethnic studies, asserted that regents were trying to “gag faculty speech” and that the proposed policy reflected efforts to repress the growing movement for Palestinian solidarity across UC campuses.

He noted that regents never tried to intervene in faculty statements on the Black Lives Matter movement after George Floyd’s killing, on climate change or in defense of immigrant students.

“It is only when faculty speech threatened to upset support for Israel and Zionism that the Regents saw fit to enact such a policy,” Malloy said in a statement to The Times. “It must be seen along with the dispatch of police against UC students, faculty and staff, as well as the newly adopted measures aimed against encampments as part of an effort by a group of Regents to hold the UC hostage to their own commitment to Zionism in the midst of a genocide against Palestine.”

No, the purpose of such statements is not to “gag faculty speech”, and should certainly not be to profess commitment to Zionism! The principle is meant, again, to allow faculty and everyone else to speak freely without being nervous about revenge from the university.  You just can’t put your speech on official university web pages.

Now Dr. Malloy is right in saying that if there is such a policy, it has to be applied fairly and uniformly: statements not affecting a university’s mission should all be banned from official websites and statements. You simply can’t allow university members to approve of Black Lives Matter or weigh in on George Floyd on one hand, but then then prevent others from writing about Israel on the other. The fair and just solution is simply to tell people to publish all their personal opinions in other places.  After all, there are plenty of such places! This website is one of them: it’s private and not at all connected to or supported by my university. My opinions are, of course, my own, and not that of my school.

Sadly, the regents of the University of California don’t seem to understand either the meaning or the import of institutional neutrality.

University of Chicago grad students file suit against their union, alleging that it makes them engage in compelled speech

July 23, 2024 • 11:30 am

After several years of effort, graduate students getting paid for research or teaching at the University of Chicago joined a labor union.  Because they couldn’t form a union de novo but had to join an existing one, they became dues-paying members of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America, Local 11o3.  This enables graduate students who get paid as research assistants or for teaching to engage in collective bargaining and to strike against the University if the bargaining reaches an impasse. The University of Chicago opposed the students’ efforts to join a union, but the University can’t prevent it.

You can see why the University would oppose unionization, for often research assistantships and teaching are regarded by universities as training rather than jobs; and if there were a strike, it would cripple research at the school as well teaching itself, for in some courses graduate teaching assistants do much of the work. But the students prevailed.  I didn’t have much of a dog in this fight, except that I thought the possibility of strikes was a dangerous byproduct of unionizing.

But joining the union came with an unexpected downside: unions can take political and ideological positions, and as a member of one (qualified students are required to join and pay union dues), you implicitly sign on to those positions.  And you may not want to do that.  In the case at hand, the Union has taken pro-Palestinian positions, and some students, especially Jewish ones, don’t want to sign on to these positions. So a group called “Graduate Students for Academic Freedom” has sued the union, alleging that the union makes them engage in implicit endorsement of the union’s positions. That, they claim, is Constitutionally prohibited “compelled speech.” You may have already guessed that this involves the war in Gaza.

Click the screenshot to read. I’ve put an excerpt below

An excerpt by Baude (there’s more at the site):

A few years ago, the graduate students at the University of Chicago, where I teach, formed a legally recognized labor union. Last year, that union expanded to include the law school, at least to the extent that law students engage in paid work such as providing research assistance. Law students who want to work as research assistants must either join the union and pay dues, or else pay agency fees to the union even if they do not join. Either way, giving money to the union is a legally required condition of working as a research assistant.

Graduate Students United at the University of Chicago, the union, engages in political speech that some law students find quite objectionable. The union is part of the United Electrical, Radio and Mine Workers of America, which also engages in political speech. For some law students, having to give money to these causes is an unacceptable condition of employment.

Yesterday, a group of those students, Graduate Students for Academic Freedom, filed a federal lawsuit against the union arguing that the arrangement violates their First Amendment rights under cases like Janus v. AFSCME, which holds that compelled agency fees “violate[] the free speech rights of nonmembers by compelling them to subsidize private speech on matters of substantial public concern.”

You can read the complaint here, and the motion for a preliminary injunction here.

This is from the complaint, so you can see what the students are objecting to. Bolding is mine:

INTRODUCTION

1.  Graduate students at the University of Chicago have been put to the choice of halting their academic pursuits, or funding antisemitism. That is unlawful.

2.  In the Winter of 2023, graduate students at Chicago voted to unionize, and are now exclusively represented by GSU-UE—a local of United Electrical (UE).

3.  That is a real problem. Among much else, UE has a long history of antisemitism. It is an outspoken proponent of the movement to “Boycott, Divest, and Sanction” Israel (BDS)—something so clearly antisemitic that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have condemned it as such. Indeed, for years, the union has had a consuming fixation with the world’s only Jewish state—a fixation peppered with all-too-common rhetoric. UE has charged Israel with “occupying” Palestine; has branded Israel an “apartheid regime”; and has accused Israel of committing “ethnic cleansing.”

4.  GSU-UE is cut from the same cloth. On campus, it has not only echoed its parent union’s rhetoric, but has added to it. It took pains to publicly “reaffirm” its commitment to BDS just one week after the October 7 terrorist attacks. And it has joined the “UChicago United for Palestine Coalition,” which gained notoriety for its protest encampment and hostile takeover of the Institute of Politics. Through it, GSU-UE has joined calls to “honor the martyrs”; fight against campus “Zionists”; resist “pigs” (i.e., police); “liberate” Palestine from the “River to the Sea,” and by “any means necessary”; and “bring the intifada home.” Jimmy Hoffa’s union this is not.

5.  Nonetheless, under a recent collective bargaining agreement extracted by the GSU-UE, graduate students at the University must now either become dues-paying members of the union, or pay it an equivalent “agency fee,” as a condition of continuing their work as teaching assistants, research assistants, or similar positions.

6.  Constitutionally speaking, that is not kosher. The union’s ability to obtain agency fees from nonconsenting students is the direct product of federal law—i.e., it involves governmental action, subject to the First Amendment. But if GSU-UE wishes to wield such federally backed power, it must accept the responsibility that comes with it; it cannot use a government-backed cudgel, outside constitutional constraint. And if the First Amendment means anything, it means students cannot be compelled to fund a group they find abhorrent as the price of continuing their work.

7.  The stories of Plaintiff’s members lay bare the stakes that are at issue here. One member is an Israeli; another a proud Jew with family fighting in Israel; and some are graduate students simply horrified by the union’s antisemitism—as well as its other (to put it mildly) controversial political positions, which reach well beyond collective bargaining to virtually every hot-button subject (e.g., abortion, affirmative action, policing, gender ideology, even the judiciary). Although members come from different backgrounds, none can stomach sending a penny to this union.

Now I’m no lawyer (I only play one on television), but it seems that this is indeed compelled speech: Jewish students are being forced to endorse policies that can be regarded as anti-Israel and likely as antisemitic. Nor do I know the solution, unless it’s to ditch the agreement that qualified students should have to join the union.  It seems to me, in my ignorance, that unions, like universities, should be “institutionally neutral”: they should not take political or ideological positions that have nothing to do with the working of the union itself.

The First Amendment itself prohibits compelled speech. As a free-speech site says,

The compelled speech doctrine sets out the principle that the government cannot force an individual or group to support certain expression. Thus, the First Amendment not only limits the government from punishing a person for his speech, it also prevents the government from punishing a person for refusing to articulate, advocate, or adhere to the government’s approved messages.

The Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) is the classic example of the compelled speech doctrine at work.

In this case, the Court ruled that a state cannot force children to stand, salute the flag, and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The justices held that school children who are Jehovah’s Witnesses, for religious reasons, had a First Amendment right not to recite the Pledge of Allegiance or salute the U.S. flag.

In oft-cited language, Justice Robert H. Jackson asserted, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

The problem, of course, is that this doctrine applies only to the government punishing people for their speech or for refusing to adhere to approved governmental speech. Since schools are arms of the government, they can’t be forced, as noted above, to salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance.  But the plaintiffs argue that the power of unions ultimately derives from the government—from legislative acts. From the complaint:

80. Step one asks: “Whether the claimed constitutional deprivation resulted from the exercise of a right or privilege having its source in state authority.” Edmonson v. Leesville Concrete Co., 500 U.S. 614, 620 (1991). And the answer here is yes: GSU-UE’s extraction of fees is the product of its legal power to bind all workers to a single collective bargaining agreement, as their sole and exclusive representative.

81. The Supreme Court has said as much: The “collection of fees from nonmembers is authorized by an act of legislative grace—one that we have termed ‘unusual’ and ‘extraordinary.’” Knox v. SEIU, Local 1000, 567 U.S. 298, 313-14 (2012).

This case, then, would seem to be an important one, for it could decide whether unions in general can indeed take political positions that are seen as implicitly endorsed by their members.  And, of course, unions regularly endorse political candidates.

The fate of this case thus depends on whether the compelled speech involved in being a union member is construed as being connected with government. As I said, I think unions, representing a broad spectrum of views among their members, should be politically neutral even if there’s no governmental connection. Compelled speech is chilled speech and inhibits free speech; this is why our university has its institutional neutrality embodied in the Kalven report.

But if the court does find that union activities occur under the aegis of government, then it’s game over: the plaintiffs win. We shall see.

Disgusting capitulation of the year: The University of Windsor gives away the store to pro-Palestinian encampers

July 11, 2024 • 11:15 am

Canada has been proving itself the most spineless country in the world when it comes to dealing with illegal campus activism (or other performative activism). Take, for example, The University of Windsor in Ontario, which until now I thought was a respectable university. They’ve had an encampment for two months, and the students, as usual, made a number of demands before they’d take it down.  But in a sickening display of cowardice, Windsor University made a deal with the students, one in which the University capitulates to a number of ridiculous demands. I receive a copy of what is purported to be the agreement, and will send it to you if you ask (it’s too long to reproduce here). But I’ll put some of the agreements below.

UPDATE: I now realized that the agreement is linked to in the CBC report (here), so I don’t need to send it to you. But the copy I received is very slightly different from that at the CBC link (the latter, for example, calls for an academic boycott of Israel, while that bit has been crossed out in what I received.)

First, though, here’s an article from the CBC news site that describes the agreement. Click headline to read:

And the story.  I’ll put below the specifics from the agreement that i was sent. Bolding is mine.

The University of Windsor says it’s reached a deal with students with a pro-Palestinian encampment that began in mid-May, and all tents will be removed from the southwestern Ontario campus within 48 hours.

“This includes peacefully ending the encampment,” the school said in a news release.

The school says the deal also includes more anti-racism initiatives, support for students impacted by the crisis in Gaza, “responsible” investing, and annual disclosures of direct and indirect public fund investments.

The agreement also involves boycotting institutional partnerships with Israeli universities until the “right of Palestinian self-determination has been realized.”

It’s the “most comprehensive and far-reaching” agreement to come out of Canadian encampment negotiations addressing issues like divestment, academic boycott and anti-Palestinian racism, the protesters said in a statement Wednesday afternoon.The encampment has been in front of the former Dillon Hall since May 13.

Negotiations between the two sides have been going on for four weeks, the group says.

“This deal presents to the students, staff, faculty and community as a whole that the university is willing to take solid steps towards a more transparent and just investment system, and rebuilding Gaza,” said Jana Alrifai, a spokesperson for the protest.

“It is a recognition of its past shortcomings and a commitment to betterment. Most importantly, this would have never happened without the fight and steadfastness of the student movement.”

Here are some other details in the agreement:

  • The university will establish anti-Palestinian racism training and education, which will be recommended for faculty, staff and students. The training will be mandatory for the leadership team and board of governors.
  • The university has 30 days to set up an anti-oppression website, which will include third-party information and resources on anti-Arab racism, anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia.
  • Students who part of the encampment won’t get any academic or employment sanctions for participating in or supporting the encampment.

The protesters will hold a 5 p.m. ET news conference on Wednesday.

Their encampment is among numerous ones set up on Canadian campuses since April, related to the Israel-Hamas war that began in October. Most of the encampments have since come down.

On Wednesday, an encampment at Montreal’s McGill University was dismantled as police, some wearing riot gear, and others on bicycles and on horseback, descended near the campus after the university served two eviction notices to protesters.

But we’re talking not about McGill but about Windsor.  As I said, I was sent a copy via an email that said this was the agreement signed by both sides, and will show you a bit of what is in it. If you want to see the whole agreement, go here.

Clicking on the heading will take you to the agreement linked to the CBC report, but the quotes I give below come from what I was sent—with the exception of the call for an academic boycott of Israel (it’s in the CBC linked copy but not in what I got). I cannot vouch for which copy of the agreement is the final one, but there’s almost no difference between them.

And some stuff they agreed on.  CONTENT WARNING:  ARRANT COWARDICE BY CANADIAN ADMINISTRATORS:

The University of Windsor is in the process of developing its first-ever anti-racism policy. A central feature of the policy will be a focus on identity-based oppression, including anti-Arab racism, anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia. The University will use its best efforts to complete the process by December 31, 2024. The University commits to including Palestinian, Arab and Muslim voices as part of the policy consultation. Regular updates will be provided on the Vice-President, People, Equity andInclusion’s website.

The University commits to establishing an anti-oppression website within 30 days of the ratification of this agreement, which will include institutional and third party information and resources on anti-Arab racism, anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia, linked for the benefit of students, faculty, staff and community members

The University agrees to establish anti-Palestinian racism training and education, which will be recommended for faculty, staff and students. The training and education will be mandatory for the Executive Leadership Team and the Board of Governors members.

The University agrees to make internal research grants available for application by students and faculty on the topic of Palestine in all of its dimensions.

The University agrees that students will not receive any academic or employment sanctions for their participation in, or support for, the encampment, bearing in mind the broad protections provided by the freedoms of expression, association, and assembly

No punishments, as usual!

The University agrees to remove the Aspire Anti-Racism information sheet from its website. [JAC: I don’t know what this website said.]

The University will invest funds as required to extend the Scholars at Risk program for an additional year (to end in 2025). Future institutional support for the program beyond 2025 will be reviewed annually by the University based on the availability of funding. The University will make the securing of funding for the continuation of the Scholars at Risk program a priority in its future financial planning. The University will make special efforts to recruit Palestinian scholars who have been impacted by the occupation of Palestine and the scholasticide in Gaza.

Scholasticide!

The University will endeavour to support students impacted by global conflicts and humanitarian crises, including Palestinian students, who have demonstrated urgent housing needs during the Intersession/Summer term with residence housing.

Provide counselling services for Palestinian, Muslim and BIPOC students which will address the rise of racism and Islamophobia. Ensure the necessary resources to ensure counselling is delivered by racial-trauma-focused therapists

The university will facilitate mental health support groups for students experiencing trauma related to the ongoing occupation of Palestine, not less than quarterly.

Anything about helping Jews or Israelis, or Jewish students affected by the war or antisemitism? I don’t see it. But wait—there are TEN PAGES OF THIS STUFF. And of course Windsor has to change its investment policies to the liking of the encampers:

The University administration agrees to propose to the Board investment committee an expansion of its RI Policy to include a new section on Human Rights and International Law. The section would be modeled after Section C. Climate Change. The section would include a commitment to review the weapons manufacturing industry, with particular attention on companies involved in manufacturing arms used in conflict zones where UN human rights mechanisms or resolutions have determined that serious violations of international human rights, humanitarian or criminal law have occurred. The section would provide an opportunity for the University to develop an operational procedure for its RI Policy based on human rights and international law. This operational procedure would be grounded in United Nations resolutions on human rights situations, and the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the United Nations Special Procedures and United Nations human rights commissions of inquiry as well as decisions of domestic legal bodies.

The University will prepare an annual responsible investing report, disclosing all investments in indirect, direct and pooled funds held in its Pension Fund, Endowment Fund and Working Capital Fund. The report shall be made publicly available. The first report will be published by December 31, 2024. The annual disclosure will provide a list of public companies within the indirect,direct and pooled funds and the amount of investments in each fund The annual disclosure will explain the application of the RI Policy, including the ESG factors and human rights, to the University’s investment decisions.

The University acknowledges the dire situation faced by Palestinian universities under Israeli occupation. This includes the destruction of the Palestinian universities in Gaza and the unjustified restrictions and frequent closures faced by Palestinian universities in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The University commits to establishing or reestablishing institutional relationships with Palestinian universities, which will include research partnerships and scholarly exchanges. Within its resources, the University will assist with, and support, the restoration of post-secondary education in Gaza.

The University will recommend to the Senate that it explore the feasibility of implementing a Palestine Studies minor under the Interdisciplinary and Critical Studies Department. Courses under this program will aim to explore Palestine in all of its dimensions.

Finally, the encampers have forced the University to violate institutional neutrality and agree with the UN’s demonization of Israel.  Windsor has no fricking business to weigh in on the war or politics, for it violates institutional neutrality by taking an official University position on the war. That, of course, chills the speech of those (presumably many) who disagree with the agreement and the stuff that Windsor will say in its capitulation:

Within 72 hours of the ratification of this agreement, the University will send a letter to the Government of Canada calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire. In the letter, it will also urge the Government of Canada to include anti-Palestinian racism within its Anti-Racism Strategy. Further, it will request that the Government of Canada should be generous in the humanitarian aid that it delivers to Palestine in order to enable Gaza to engage in reconstruction for its people, and to assist the Palestinians to realize their right to self-determination. The University will post the letter on its website.

This is in the document linked to at the CBC site, but is crossed out in the copy I was sent. If it really was agreed on, it calls for an academic boycott of Israel.

The University does not hold any active institutional academic partnerships with Israeli institutions. Because of the challenging environment for academic collaboration the University agrees to not pursue any institutional academic agreements with Israeli universities until the right of Palestinian self-determination has been realized, as determined by the United Nations, unless supported by Senate. This does not prevent individual academics at the University of Windsor from working (or collaborating) with academics in Israel.

Finally, there’s this—more taking sides in a conflict and more chilling of speech at Windsor:

For the purposes of the application of its RI Policy, the University recognizes that the United Nations, through its various bodies – including the Secretary General, the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, the International Court of Justice and human rights commissions of inquiry – has found Israel, the occupying power, to be in serious violation of international law and human rights in the conduct of its occupation of Palestinian territory. It also recognizes that the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has established an active database of companies whom it has identified are engaged with the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Of course there’s bupkes about Hamas violating international law.

This whole document is simply reprehensible, a sickening display of cowardice (and antisemitism) on the part of Windsor University, which commits itself to taking the side of Hamas in the war and providing resources to Palestine and Palestinian students that aren’t offered to Israeli or Jewish students. There are plenty of initiatives against “Islamophobia,” but I don’t see a single one against antisemitism. Does Windsor do all this stuff for Israeli academics, professors, and students? Perhaps they already have similar policies in place with respect to Israel (extra counseling for Jewish students, etc.), but I doubt it.

Again, if you want to see the whole nauseating agreement, click here.

Amherst decides not to divest from Israel, but its policy still violates institutional neutrality

June 25, 2024 • 9:30 am

Amherst College’s Board of Trustees has issued a rather confused statement responding to the call of many Amherst pro-Palestinians to divest from companies supplying military equipment to Israel.  The Board decided not to divest, but seems to reserve the right to do so if there is a lot of agreement in the college community on political or ideological issues.

Moreover, the Board emphasizes that it has in the past taken sides and issued statements on such issues, including “apartheid in South Africa and genocide in Sudan.” The bizarre aspect of their statement—and one that nullifies any pretense of institutional neutrality—is that it appears to condition official statements by the Board on whether or not there is “broad and deep agreement” in the Amherst community.  That, of course, raises the question of how broad and deep the agreement must be before the board decides to take sides.

Clearly, Amherst doesn’t fully embrace the Kalven Principles held by the University of Chicago, in which investments occur absolutely independently of outside pressure from and of the extent of agreement in the University community. Chicago has never responded to pressure of this sort.

You can read the Amherst Board’s response by clicking on the link below:

Early in the report, the Board says that their actions are governed by both the economic welfare of Amherst (which investments are supposed to uphold) and the degree of agreement of the community on a political, moral, or ideological issue.  The latter, of course, violates institutional neutrality (bolding is mine):

In our discussions, two principles have guided the trustees: first, as a fiduciary, the Board has a legal responsibility to act in the best interests of the College for both the short and long term; and second, as an agent of an institution comprised of many individuals with a wide range of backgrounds and opinions, it must consider and respect the perspectives of all members of our community. Accordingly, actions taken by the Board should either directly relate to the preservation and advancement of the College’s educational mission or, in rare cases lacking that connection to our purpose, should reflect a broad and deep agreement among Amherst’s students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and should not otherwise harm the College’s interests.

The Board has taken action on issues where disagreement exists—including, in recent years, legacy admissions, support for undocumented students, and advocacy for increased federal and state financial aid—on questions directly related to the fulfillment of our mission as an educational institution. Very rarely, the Board has also taken action responding to global events unrelated to the College’s day-to-day operation—apartheid in South Africa and genocide in Sudan—but only when there was clear agreement in our community, supported by a consensus of the federal government and international organizations.

I’m sure I’d agree with the Board’s stand on South Africa and Sudan (I was arrested for protesting apartheid), but that’s not the point. The Board should not be taking such stands, for they chill the expression of those who may dissent, stifling the lifeblood of a college: free discussion, untrammeled by fear of offending the higher-ups.

At Chicago, official statements can be made and actions taken,on issues that directly affect the working and mission of the University, including the DACA program supporting undocumented students. It’s the part above in bold that is problematic, allowing the Trustees to take stands on issues with no direct bearing on the College’s mission. And on those issues, including South Africa and Sudan, that the Amherst Board of Trustees did indeed take action. It’s not clear from the document whether that action involved divestment or making official statements supporting one side, but either action violates institutional neutrality.

Apparently, the degree of disagreement about the war in Gaza hasn’t risen to Amherst’s level of agreement (bolding is again mine):

With regard to divestment related to Israel’s campaign in Gaza, perspectives in the Amherst community are both deeply held and extremely polarized, as was demonstrated by opinions shared in the faculty meeting on divestment; in meetings held this spring by the administration and trustees with students, faculty, and alumni; during and after the protest at Reunion; in countless formal and informal discussions and venues throughout the year; in the Amherst Student; and in petitions, open letters, and emails to the Board and the administration.

. . . The Board believes that this state of profound disagreement, both as to the action to be taken and its propriety, is very different from the two previous instances when the College took endowment action reflecting broad and deep agreement both on and beyond our campus in response to events in South Africa and Sudan. While the recent resolutions approved by the AAS Senate and the faculty received majority votes of those present, a substantial minority exists among students and faculty that opposes these resolutions—and many alumni have expressed opposing positions, as well. The Board respects that these resolutions were approved through deliberative processes that resulted in the approval of the majority. It also feels an obligation to listen carefully to and consider the significant minority that opposed them.

This leads one to ask this: “If condemnation of Israel were nearly universal at Amherst, would the board then be justified in disinvesting, or taking other actions?”  They imply “yes,” but, to add to the confusion, later on they emphasize that even unanimity of opinion would be problematic for disinvesting (bolding is mine).

Even if there were universal consensus in support of divestment and shared agreement about which companies “supply military equipment used in the present campaign in Gaza”—as the faculty resolution frames it—it would be unrealistic for us to seek to compel our current outside investment managers to remove these companies from their funds. We would, therefore, need to liquidate holdings at potentially poor valuations and either move our endowment capital to other managers whose current investments do not include these companies or directly manage the capital, which would not align with responsible practices for institutional investment. These actions could have significant immediate and long-term negative impacts on returns and—because the endowment directly supports 56% of the College’s annual operating budget—on financial aid, faculty and staff salaries and benefits, and operations.

This is puzzling. I’m not sure whether the actions taken by Amherst’s Trustees with respect to South Africa and Sudan involved disinvesting, but if it did, then clearly there is no complete bar to doing so.

Which is it, Amherst?  Perhaps, though, the Trustees didn’t disinvest in those cases, but merely issued statements. But as I said, even statements violate institutional neutrality. Who would be the judge of whether agreement on an issue is sufficiently widespread that action could be taken? If one student or professor dissents from an action (and surely there was not 100% agreement on South Africa and Sudan), does that still warrant taking sides?

Clearly not, because taking sides, either through issuing statements or disinvesting, will chill the speech of actual or potential dissenters. This is why institutional neutrality should be near absolute, breached only when an issue affects the working and mission of a college.

So would Amherst disinvest again  on a political issue like Gaza if demands to do so come from the college and nearly everybody agrees? They don’t say, but leave the question unanswered. In other words, they punt (bolding is mine):

Students, faculty, and alumni have also raised important questions about the standards by which the Board makes decisions about the endowment and possible actions related to divestment, the channels through which such actions should be proposed and how they should be evaluated, and the transparency of such decisions. Concurrently, some trustees have raised the question of whether the endowment is ever the correct vehicle for the College to express a position on a matter of morality or politics.

The Board realizes that it must address these important issues and continues to discuss the student-drafted proposal to create a campus committee that would make recommendations on such actions in the future. It has become apparent that members of the Amherst community interpret the role of the endowment in very different ways.

This is kicking the Kalven can down the road.

So no, Amherst has not adopted a policy of institutional neutrality, but simply made any official statements and actions contingent on how much dissent there is in the college community. That’s not a great way to foster free expression.

FIRE poll has good news and bad news

June 21, 2024 • 11:30 am

A new poll by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has some good news and some bad news. I’ll highlight what I see are the important results, but you can read the whole thing by clicking below.


The poll was conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago (formerly the National Opinion Research Center), and their results are generally solid.  The sample, says the page, “The

.. . . was conducted May 17-19, 2024, using NORC’s AmeriSpeak® probability-based panel, and sampled 1,309 Americans. The overall margin of error for the survey is +/- 4%.

Here are some graphs:

While some of these protest actions are regulated on campuses (ours, for example, regulates the times when you can use amplified sound), the poll is simply about whether it’s okay for college students to engage in these activities. No “time, place, or manner” restrictions are discussed.

Given that, and looking at the dark and light red bars as indications of “not very acceptable”, we see pretty much what we expect. What’s surprising is that a huge majority of Americans (these are not just students) find burning an American flag unacceptable (about 70% “never acceptable and 12% “rarely acceptable”), despite the fact that burning an American flag is protected as free speech by the First Amendment!  (So is holding signs.) Americans either don’t know or don’t care about that interpretation of flag-burning by the courts. As the FIRE site notes:

“It’s no shocker that Americans tend to disapprove of illegal and illiberal conduct by student protesters,” said FIRE Chief Research Advisor Sean Stevens. “But it’s alarming that a third of Americans say constitutionally protected and non-threatening activities like sign-holding or petitions are only ‘sometimes’ or ‘rarely’ acceptable. Nonviolent protest should always be acceptable on college campuses.”

But I disagree with FIRE in part here as there are time, place, and manner restrictions that apply even to nonviolent protests. Blocking access to campus or impeding classes with megaphones and shouting are nonviolent forms of protest, but prevent academia from operating propetly. In my view, FIRE is simply wrong that these should always be acceptable.  Much of the time, yes, but not always. 

Encamping is also of interest, and 43% of American think that establishing them is “never acceptable” while about 22% see them as “rarely acceptable”. About 25% see encampments as “sometimes or always acceptable”, with the “sometimes” outnumbering “always’ here.  Whether universities consider encampment acceptable, of course, depends on the school and the form of encampment.  Williams College, for instance, had a small, out-of-the-way encampment and nobody was bothered.

Here are the consequences that the American public thinks should fall onto students participating in encampments.


FIRE’s summary:

Nearly three-fourths of Americans (72%) believe that campus protesters who participated in encampments should be punished, but only 18% believe they should receive the harshest penalty of expulsion. Other responses ran the gamut from suspension (13%), to probation (16%), to written reprimand (12%), to community service (13%). Only 23% believe the students should receive no punishment at all.

LOL; I think more than 23% of colleges themselves believe that encamping students should receive no punishment at all. At least that’s my guess based on the number of students who seem to be getting of scot-free for encamping.  As for punishment, there’s roughly equal sentiment in faor of a written reprimand, community service, probation, suspension, or expulsion.  Perhaps a written reprimand would be okay for students who are first-time violators, but the penalty should go up if there are previous violations on a student’s record, and also on how much warning they were given by the university, as well as whether they engaged in any harassment of individuals during the encampment.

There’s a bit more:

“Public colleges and universities can usually ban encampments without violating the First Amendment, so long as the ban serves a reasonable purpose, enforcement is consistent and viewpoint-neutral, and students maintain other avenues for expressing themselves,” said FIRE Director of Campus Rights Advocacy Lindsie Rank. “Universities can’t disproportionately punish students just because administrators don’t agree with the viewpoint being expressed at the encampment.”

Agreed!

And I’ve saved the good news for last:

FIRE’s summary:

Almost two-thirds of Americans (63%) said that the campus protests had no impact at all on their level of sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza, and respondents were as likely to say that the campus protests made them sympathize less with the Palestinians (17%) as they were to say they made them sympathize more (16%).

In other words, the net effect of campus protests—and they surely mean “pro-Palestinian protests”—is ZERO: as just as many people become more sympathetic as become less sympathetic, while most people don’t change their minds at all. In other words, the protests are performative, at least with respect to American opinion. They could, of course, hearten or disappoint Hamas, but again the net effect would be nil.  What the protests do accomplish is reduce America’s confidence in colleges and universities, which seems to be continuously slipping. And yes, that’s bad news:

FIRE’s poll also shows that American confidence in colleges and universities continues to slip. Only 28% of respondents said that they have either a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in U.S. colleges and universities. By comparison, 36% of Americans told Gallup in summer 2023 that they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in higher education in the U.S.

The FIRE summary concludes with more bad news: a pessimistic take of Americans on whether institutions of higher education protest free speech

Colleges received middling grades in particular on the issue of protecting speech. Almost half of Americans (47%) say that it is “not at all” or “not very” clear that college administrators protect free speech on their campus. Roughly two-in-five Americans (42%) said that it is “not at all”or “not very” likely that a school administration would defend a speaker’s right to express their views during a controversy on campus.

McGill University faced with harboring an enclave of Hamas

June 18, 2024 • 9:30 am

Reader Alan Garcia-Elfring, a recent Ph.D. graduate of Montreal’s McGill University (he didn’t have qualms about my using his name) sent along an email from the university President about a rather disturbing Instagram post from the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights [SPHR] McGill Instagram site.) The first link goes to the post itself, but I’ve put a screenshot below in case they take it down. Have a gander:

I haven’t dug much further, but it looks as if there’s an encampment at McGill and they’re holding a summer program that seems to turn the encampment into a branch of Hamas.  This has caused a kerfuffle promoted by both the press and the understandably disturbed Jewish community of Montreal. For example, here’s one report from CTV News in Montreal (click to read):

An excerpt:

Pro-Palestinian activists who have been encamped on McGill University’s downtown campus since April launched what they call their own summer school on Monday, despite controversy over photos of armed fighters used to promote the program.

The encampment’s youth summer program promises “revolutionary lessons” and political discussions over the next four weeks, including a series of lectures on Palestinian history, the resistance movement and the role of the media since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel.

But on Friday, federal and provincial politicians called for the encampment to be dismantled after posters for the summer program were published online featuring photos of Palestinian resistance fighters wearing kaffiyehs and holding rifles. The photos date from around 1970, and the militants appear to be reading copies of Chairman Mao Zedong’s “The Little Red Book.”

“Enough is enough, this is hate speech and incitement to hate, pure and simple!” federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller posted on X. “De-escalation at McGill has clearly failed. This needs to end!”

Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Dery said the poster was tantamount to “provocation, explicit incitement to violence, even indoctrination.”

Insp. David Shane of the Montreal police told reporters Monday that while the poster doesn’t target any particular group, “it’s clearly in very poor taste and it’s likely to make people feel unsafe.” He said police have opened an investigation and have “been in contact with the RCMP.”

. . .As of Monday morning, online registration for the summer program had closed. Karim said 50 to 80 people have signed up for the first week of lectures, which will take place every afternoon. Organizers, she added, were surprised by the number of registrants, and may open up more spots in the weeks to come.

Most of the attendees will be students, Karim said. ” 1/8They 3/8 were really interested in the idea of being able to come here and get educated on Palestine.”

Members of the encampment have said they will not leave until McGill ends its investments in companies tied to the Israeli military and cuts ties with Israeli institutions. The university has made offers to protesters, the most recent of which included to review its investments in weapons manufacturers and grant amnesty to protesting students. Members of the encampment rejected that offer, calling it “laughable.”

I don’t know how much of this is considered “free speech” (Canada doesn’t have a First Amendment), nor whether the encampment itself violates university rules. At any rate, the poster and press response got sufficient attention that McGill’s President had to write the following letter to the university community (click to read, though I’ve transcribed the letter below):

Dear McGill community,

On the evening of June 12, a group called Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR) published a notice on social media platforms featuring masked individuals holding assault rifles, which called for participation in a “revolutionary youth summer program” on the lower field next week. Their stated aim is to “educate the youth of Montreal.”

This is extremely alarming. It has attracted international media attention, and many in our community have understandably reached out to share grave concerns – concerns that I share.

It should go without saying that imagery evoking violence is not a tool of peaceful expression or assembly. This worrying escalation is emblematic of the rising tensions on campuses across North America, where we have seen many incidents that go well beyond what universities are equipped to manage on their own.

As such, today we have reached out to municipal, provincial, and federal public safety authorities, flagging this social media post and other recent activities as matters of national security, and requesting all appropriate interventions to ensure the safety of our community.

I want to emphasize that this is only the latest escalation in SPHR’s longstanding strategy of intimidation and fear. This is the same group that described the October 7 Hamas assault and taking of hostages as “heroic.” SPHR has invoked offensive antisemitic language and imagery, and claimed responsibility for the harassment of McGill community members. Their incendiary rhetoric and tactics seek to intimidate and destabilize our community.

In recent months, some members of the McGill community have chosen to advocate for their views through open dialogue and peaceful protest. Regrettably, SPHR is not among them.

Next Steps

  • In addition to our appeals to public safety authorities at all levels of government, we will further increase the presence of security staff near the encampment and elsewhere on campus.
  • We continue to pursue legal action to bar SPHR from using the McGill name on social media platforms and elsewhere, and we are working with legal counsel to explore a range of additional measures.
  • We will pursue internal disciplinary processes.
  • We have called upon the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), the independent student union that includes all undergraduate students as members and lists SPHR as an affiliated “club,” to publicly condemn this “summer program,” sever their relationship with SPHR, cease any disbursement of funds to them, and affirm SSMU’s commitment to the well-being and success of McGill students of all identities, beliefs, and lived experiences. We have indicated that, should SSMU fail to take these steps, this will be interpreted as their endorsement of SPHR’s activities.

As a campus community, we need not all share the same views, but it is imperative that we share a common respect for the limits of acceptable behaviour. SPHR’s actions have far surpassed that threshold. We will continue to deploy any and all measures available to us, within the bounds of the law, to keep our community safe.

Sincerely,

Deep Saini

President and Vice-Chancellor

The President is threatening to remove SPHR from being what we at Chicago call a “recognized student organization,” which here gives a group the rights, among other stuff, to use the University name, hold events at the University and get funding. I’m not sure whether that applies at McGill, nor whether the poster above constitutes some kind of violation. But if the encampment violates University rules, blocks off space and creates an atmosphere of exclusion and threat, then McGill might take action. They say they’re pursuing “internal disciplinary processes,” implying that University restrictions have been violated.

There’s a large Jewish community in Montreal (Steve Pinker was part of it and went to McGill as an undergraduate), so of course this is bound to create a fracas. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, the poster by itself seems to me free speech (though unwise speech). But there are those other activities as well as the encampment itself. . . . Weigh in below.

Our ex-Provost, now head of Vanderbilt, says Harvard’s “institutional neutrality” leaves something to be desired

June 13, 2024 • 11:15 am

Our previous provost, Daniel Diermeier, became Chancellor (i.e., President) of Vanderbilt University, and that was a great loss to us. Since he went to Vandy, he’s enforced prohibitions against trespassing and illegal violations of free speech (building occupations), and also adopted both the Free Speech Principles and the Institutional Neutrality that he experienced at the University of Chicago. I wish he were our President now, as he’s doing a bang-up job at Vandy.

Harvard recently tried to go institutionally neutral, too, and it did a pretty good job, as I wrote about here and here.  But Diermeier finds one problem with Harvard’s neutrality that eluded me. It’s important, as it involves university investments—the object of much rancor these days. Diermeier identifies Harvard’s blind spot in the following WSJ article (it isn’t archived, so ask if you want a pdf):

Click to read:

Actually, the article makes two points. First, it explains why institutional neutrality is importantin a clear and succinct way (the Kalven Report is much longer):

In explaining institutional neutrality and why it’s important, most proponents point to the 1967 Kalven Report from the University of Chicago. At the report’s heart is the assertion that neutrality is necessary for maintaining conditions conducive to a university’s purpose. The report points out that universities and their leaders risk stifling debate when they stake out official positions. Moreover, when a university or its administrative units take a political stance, it invites lobbying and competitive advocacy by various campus constituencies, which turns the university into a political battlefield and erodes its unique purpose—promoting the pursuit of knowledge and truth.

Taking official positions also erodes the university’s commitment to expertise. Recognizing and rewarding deep knowledge, and making sharp distinctions between experts and nonexperts, is part of a university’s reason for being. When university leaders make declarations on issues they know little about, often in haste, they compromise that reverence for expertise. Even in the rare case where leaders are domain experts, they should avoid making official statements to keep from chilling debate.

He also points out a semantic issue that, comparing Harvard’s neutrality with Chicago’s, is a distinction without a difference:

Oddly, the two co-chairs of the Harvard faculty working group that recommended the new policy wrote in a recent op-ed piece that “the principle behind our policy isn’t neutrality.” Instead, they seek to further “values that drive the intellectual pursuit of truth: open inquiry, reasoned debate, divergent viewpoints and expertise.” There is little to distinguish those values from those of the Kalven Report.

Sorting out these semantics can be left to future historians of academia. The important thing is that Harvard agrees the duty of the university is to be a forceful advocate only when it comes to its core functions—and to be silent on other matters.

The recent op-ed by two Harvard professors who confected their neutrality report, an op-ed that I criticized in the first link above, appeared in the NYT, and can be found archived here. The op-ed was quite a bit different from the proposed policy. But the policy is what’s in force.

BUT. . . . somehow neutrality went out the window at Harvard when it comes to investing, about which Harvard refuses to  explicitly affirm institutional neutality. Diermeier says this:

Yet although Harvard’s change of heart is encouraging news for higher education, its new policy makes a crucial omission that is at the core of the current controversy on campuses.

Students at universities nationwide have called on their institutions to join the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. According to the Harvard working group co-chairs, it didn’t “address, much less solve, the hard problem of when the university should or shouldn’t divest its endowment funds from a given portfolio.” Its members classified divestment “as an action rather than a statement” and thus treated the question as “outside our mandate.”

This is a distinction without a difference. Whether you call it an action or a statement, politically or socially motivated divestment plainly violates institutional neutrality because it requires a university to choose a side in a debate unrelated to its core function, thus signaling that there is only one acceptable way to think about the issue.

When a university’s portfolio manager makes the considered and consequential decision to divest from a company because its stock seems overvalued, this is legitimate fiduciary oversight. But divesting because an entity does business with the Israeli government is a clear violation of institutional neutrality. A university’s investment goal should be to maximize the rate of return, which means more funding for faculty research and student aid.

Institutional neutrality firmly supports a university’s purpose. So after an era when universities have been quick to issue position statements on the political controversies of the day, it is good that they are getting out of that game. It is a university’s job to encourage debates, not settle them. But for any university policy prohibiting political statement-making to be comprehensive and effective, it must address and discourage politically driven divestment.

This is why any university aspiring to institutional neutrality must not make an exception of investments, which could lay the university open to all kinds of moral, political, and ideological pressures from both within and without the school. Calls for universities to divest from Israel, which are ubiquitous, should not be heeded—and they often aren’t. The same goes for Palestine or any kind of call for divestment driven by other than pecuniary considerations.  Diermeier’s explanation of why investments should also be institutionally neutral is important, and those who want universities to be neutral should read it and absorb it.  That includes Harvard.

I wonder how much money it would take to lure Diermeier back to Chicago, where he should, in my view, be promptly installed as President.