[BIFI] Berkeley Initiative for Free Inquiry

Category: News

  • Citing Free Expression, Efficacy, MIT Drops DEI Statements

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in ,

    MSN reports: “MIT will no longer require diversity statements in its faculty-hiring process, making it the first elite university to abandon the practice.” MIT President Sally Kornbluth told the National Review, “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.” This is significant…

  • Fish’s view of the role of the university

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in

    Stanley Fish writes in the Lamp: Nothing in our charters, employment contracts, or compliance requirements directs us or authorizes us to play a role on the world’s stage. No applicant for a position is asked to produce political credentials; the credentials you must produce are academic. What training have you had in the field in…

  • Kennedy on DEI Statements

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in

    Harvard Law’s Randall Kennedy writes in the Crimson that DEI statements create a ideological litmus test: By overreaching, by resorting to compulsion, by forcing people to toe a political line, by imposing ideological litmus tests, by incentivizing insincerity, and by creating a circular mode of discourse that is seemingly impervious to self-questioning, the current DEI…

  • Bar-Yoshafat Event Held Without Incident

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in ,

    The Los Angeles Times reports: Three weeks after violence broke out at a private event organized by Jewish student groups at UC Berkeley and protested by pro-Palestinian demonstrators, the speech took place Monday and unfolded without issue.

  • Statement on Return Event for Ran Bar-Yoshafat

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in

    Executive Committee Statement We write as Berkeley faculty in response to the news that several student groups plan to host the Israeli speaker Ran Bar-Yoshafat for a return visit on Monday, March 18. Our group has no position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but we are committed to defending free expression on campus. The last time…

  • Harvard May Consider Institutional Neutrality

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in

    The Harvard Crimson reports: Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 is expected to announce a working group that will consider a policy of institutional neutrality, a move that comes just months after the University became embroiled in controversy over its response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

  • Is Institutional Neutrality Catching On?

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in

    The CHE reports: Amid a polarized political climate and debates about the war in Gaza and hot-button social issues like abortion rights, university leaders’ statements about current events have attracted attention and scrutiny. A small but growing number of institutions are responding to the pressure by swearing off such statements altogether.

  • “Faculty for Yale” Formed

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in

    The group’s founding commitments are: Of course, not everyone agrees with the diagnosis made by Faculty for Yale. A group of Yale faculty critical of institutional neutrality have penned “A Letter to the Next Yale President” with a different vision for the university.

  • Gutkin: The Hyperbolic Style in American Academe

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in

    CHE essayist Len Gutkin writes: …Over the last several years, a curious species of overheated activist prose has proved attractive to scholars across the university. Call it the hyperbolic style in American academe.

  • Columbia Embraces Kalven

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    Chris Hoofnagle
    in ,

    Jerry Coyne reports that Columbia University has endorsed the Kalven (institutional neutrality) principles—one of just four campuses to do so.