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Reges Wins Speech Case at Ninth Circuit
“The public university occupies a central place in the law of the First Amendment. The First Amendment protects the free exchange of ideas. The university is a primary generator and repository of ideas, a place in which unfettered academic debate and open discourse promotes the search for truth and prepares students for a discordant world
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UC Riverside Faculty Call for Common Defense
Earlier this month, the UC Riverside Division of the Academic Senate adopted a resolution calling for the creation of Mutual Academic Defense Compacts among universities. The proposal urges the University of California system—and California higher education more broadly—to develop formal, collective mechanisms to defend academic freedom, free expression, institutional autonomy, and the research enterprise in
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BIFI letter on Peyrin Kao disciplinary case
Dear Chancellor Lyons, EVCP Hermalin, and Chair Stacey: As faculty dedicated to improving the climate for free inquiry at Berkeley, we write to express our concern about the recent discipline of lecturer Peyrin Kao, which raises procedural and substantive questions about academic freedom. We are concerned that at least one of the actions for which
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Nativ Suit Settlement
A visiting professor, Yael Nativ, sued the Regents earlier this year. BIFI’s statement summarized the allegation as, “The complaint alleges that a department denied Dr. Nativ’s application to return as visiting professor because of her Israeli national origin, with the department chair citing fear of controversy as a reason for declining to host her class
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Lecturer Disciplined for Advocacy
The Daily Cal reports: UC Berkeley administration has suspended lecturer Peyrin Kao for the spring 2026 semester without pay for pro-Palestinian political remarks made in the classroom. The administration’s rationale is available here.
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Letter on the TPUSA Event
An open letter sent by the executive committee of the Berkeley Initiative for Free Inquiry (BIFI) to UC Berkeley Chancellor Rich Lyons and UCPD Chief Yogananda Pittman, regarding the November 10, 2025 Turning Point USA event. Dear Chancellor Lyons and Chief Pittman, As faculty dedicated to promoting free inquiry at UC Berkeley, we write 1)
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Panel on Release of Names
Video is now available from the BFA/UC-AFT/BFF2L Academic Freedom and the Release of Names panel.
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Berkeley Accreditor Drops DEI from Standards Requirements
Inside Higher Education reports: The Western Association of Schools and Colleges Senior College and University Commission has formally adopted updated accreditation standards that eliminate all mention of diversity, equity and inclusion.
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BIFI Statement on Investigations
Statement by the Executive Committee, Berkeley Initiative for Freedom of Inquiry As faculty dedicated to promoting free inquiry at UC Berkeley, we write to express our concern about the individualized incident data recently shared with the US Department of Education regarding investigations of students and faculty. It is especially troubling that some of these allegations
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Berkeley Senate Letter on Records Request
The Berkeley Division of the Senate sent the following letter concerning the release of individualized data.
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Statement on the Nativ Lawsuit
Statement by the Executive Committee of the Berkeley Initiative for Freedom of Inquiry: As members of the Berkeley faculty, we are deeply troubled by the allegations in the recent complaint filed by Dr. Yael Nativ, which raises grave questions about whether our campus is living up to its civil rights obligations and free speech commitments. The complaint alleges that a department
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BIFI EC Statement on Regents Discipline Policy
On July 8, 2025, the Executive Council of BIFI sent the following letter to the UC Regents concerning the Proposed Revisions to Academic Personnel Manual (APM) Section 016 (Faculty Conduct and the Administration of Discipline). Dear Regents, We are a group of Berkeley faculty representing diverse viewpoints and disciplines who share a common commitment to
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BIFI EC Statement
Statement by the Executive Committee of the Berkeley Initiative for Freedom of Inquiry, a faculty group dedicated to improving the climate for free speech at Berkeley: We join our colleagues in the Berkeley Faculty for the Freedom to Learn and the Berkeley Faculty Association in deploring the current presidential administration’s capricious attacks on universities around
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Regents End DEI Statements in Hiring
UC System Provost Katherine Newman wrote in a letter to campuses on March 19, 2025 that the UC Regents have directed campuses to end the practice of using diversity statements in hiring: I write at the request of President Drake to let you know about a decision by the UC Board of Regents to change
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Student Survey Elucidates Nuances About Speech Concerns
An Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab survey of 1,034 students at 197 two- and four-year institutions found interesting nuances about students’ concerns: The largest share of students, 40 percent, say other students are most at fault for escalating tensions around campus speech, with the question offering 10 possible responses and up to two selections. The more
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FIRE Survey Finds Support for Institutional Neutrality at Berkeley
FIRE has released a large (N=6,269) survey of faculty at selected universities on free speech. There is a breakout panel on Berkeley (n=156). The survey found stronger support for institutional neutrality at Berkeley (75%) than among faculty overall (70%).
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Michigan report: DEI statements are political litmus tests
The University of Michigan Diversity Statement Working Group found that “these standalone documents [DEI statements] should no longer be solicited as part of faculty hiring and consideration for promotion and tenure. This first recommendation is based upon the nearly 2,000 faculty member responses to a survey we created, our reading of numerous actual diversity statements
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Leiter on Academic Freedom
Professor Brian Leiter recently have a public lecture on the law and philosophy of academic freedom in the U.S.
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“I’m moving this university in the direction of institutional neutrality.”
In an interview with KQED, new Chancellor Rich Lyons said: We actually have a positive obligation under what’s called Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to make sure that students are given full access to all the educational opportunities without harassment, without intimidation. And at the same time, we have a positive obligation to
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Reminder on OFEW
The BIFI Executive Committee sent this message to faculty on August 20, 2025 Dear colleagues, As a new academic year begins, we’d like to offer a timely reminder that guidance by OFEW on search procedures and evaluation of candidates for faculty positions is advisory, and Senate faculty on search committees generally can choose whether or
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UC’s SB 108 Speech Guidelines
UC President Michael Drake, in response to a requirement imposed by California legislatures, released guidelines for all UC campuses to implement and enforce rules surrounding protests. The guidelines require several categories of rules: UC Berkeley’s implementation of the student conduct rules are here. UC Berkeley also has a more general summary here.
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JHU Adopts Institutional Neutrality
The President, Provost, and Deans of Johns Hopkins University stated [local copy]: …the very idea of an “official” position of the university on a social, scientific, or political issue runs counter to our foundational ethos—articulated most clearly in our Statement of Principles of Academic Freedom—to be a place where competing views are welcomed, challenged, and tested through
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UCOP, Campuses Must Provide Free Speech, Climate Report
California’s budget bill specifies that UC campuses must issue a climate report on free speech, or risk losing $25 million in funding. The relevant portions of the bill are pasted below. 34. It is the intent of the Legislature that the University of California foster freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas that
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Might warnings deter the heckler veto?
Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky relates an anecdote about a threat to shut down an event and how he responded in the AALS President’s Message (Spring 2022) A few years ago, there was an incident at my law school where an Israeli Supreme Court justice was coming to speak. A group, Students for Justice in
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Stanford tweaks institutional neutrality policy
According to the Stanford Report, the campus tweaked its institutional neutrality and free speech policies. The new institutional policy reads: When speaking for the institution, Stanford University leaders and administrators should not express an opinion on political and social controversies, unless these matters directly affect the mission of the university or implicate its legal obligations.
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Harvard FAS will replace DEI statements with service statement
The Crimson reports that Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences will no longer require DEI statements of faculty candidates: [Dean of Faculty Affairs and Planning] Zipser wrote that she and FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra “made this change in response to feedback from numerous faculty members” who expressed concern that existing requirements were “too narrow
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Harvard didn’t plagiarize Chicago’s Kalven approach
In the Report on Institutional Voice in the University, the Institutional Voice working group wrote, the “university and its leaders should not…issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.”
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Citing Free Expression, Efficacy, MIT Drops DEI Statements
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
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Fish’s view of the role of the university
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
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Kennedy on DEI Statements
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
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Bar-Yoshafat Event Held Without Incident
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.
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Pamela Paul on Institutional Neutrality
Pamela Paul writes in the New York Times: The temptation for universities to take a moral stand, especially in response to overheated campus sentiment, is understandable. But it’s a trap. When universities make it their mission to do the “right” thing politically, they’re effectively telling large parts of their communities — and the polarized country
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Statement on Return Event for Ran Bar-Yoshafat
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
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Harvard May Consider Institutional Neutrality
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.
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Is Institutional Neutrality Catching On?
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.
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“Faculty for Yale” Formed
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.
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Gutkin: The Hyperbolic Style in American Academe
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.
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Columbia Embraces Kalven
Jerry Coyne reports that Columbia University has endorsed the Kalven (institutional neutrality) principles—one of just four campuses to do so.
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Columbia Adopts Institutional Neutrality, Governance Resolution
In a 68-0 vote, Columbia’s Academic Senate adopted a resolution “Reconfirming our Commitment to the Principles of Academic Freedom and Shared Governance.” The Senate resolved: Columbia’s senate details the debate and discussion surrounding the adoption here. In the Senate minutes, one proponent of the resolution explained academic freedom as both creating rights and responsibilities: Sen.
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Columbia Creates Faculty Academic Freedom Council
Over 70 faculty have come together to create the Columbia Academic Freedom Council. The group endorsed these responsibilities: I. Responsibility to protect academic freedom. Like many on campus, we believe that the liberal ideal of academic freedom—the freedom to think, write, publish, and teach without restrictions in the course of our duties as scholars—is core
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IIS to Host Yoel Inbar
Berkeley’s Institute of International Studies will host Yoel Inbar as part of its Berkeley Academic Freedom in a Global Perspective series. The talk, How Understanding Moral Thinking Can Help Us Understand Debates About Academic Freedom, is February 20th at 4 PM in 223 Philosophy Hall. Register here.
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Primacy of Teaching and Research
The WSJ reports that two Yale professors, Nicholas Christakis and Kate Stith, sent an email to faculty urging a refocus on academic endeavours. The email is not public, but the WSJ has reproduced parts of it: Yale faculty are the custodians of a system of values that is presently under threat from a number of
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U. Chicago Free Speech Alliance
Alumni of University of Chicago are forming a new Free Speech Alliance.
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Gutkin: A Decade of Ideological Transformation Comes Undone
In a wide-ranging essay in the CHE, Len Gutkin asks, “Why, in the last 10 years, have elite colleges in particular become sites of such relentless ideological confrontation and objects of such severe political contestation?” In the essay, written after the Senate hearings on antisemitism on college campuses, Gutkin observes: …From one point of view,
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Julia Schaletzky on Free Speech
BIFI’s Julia Schaletzky, writing in Tablet, diagnoses campus free speech problems and recommends solutions.
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Pinker’s Five-Point Plan for Harvard
Harvard Professor Steven Pinker published a five-point “plan to save Harvard from itself:” Free speech. Universities should adopt a clear and conspicuous policy on academic freedom. It might start with the First Amendment, which binds public universities and which has been refined over the decades with carefully justified exceptions. These include crimes that by their very
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University of Toronto forms Academic Freedom Group
The Council on Academic Freedom University of Toronto (CAFUT) is a faculty-led group devoted to: Free inquiry The Council will advocate for academic freedom in teaching, research, and speech for members of the U of T community. Intellectual diversity The Council will promote thoughtful engagement by students and scholars who represent a broad range of
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Alivisatos on Campus Free Speech
University of Chicago President (and former Berkeley Professor) Paul Alivisatos wrote a message to campus extolling free speech as both a gift and a collective responsibility: Ours is a culture built upon a fundamental commitment to place evidence, reason, logic, and rigor over authority, tradition, ideology, or dogma. The University can only achieve this vision
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Provost on Political Activity
On October 25, 2023, Provost Benjamin Hermalin posted this message to CalMessages. Dear Community, I write to remind people of University policy as pertains to academic freedom and political advocacy in the classroom. While instructors enjoy considerable freedom and all individuals, when acting as private citizens, enjoy free speech rights, University policy does impose
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Chancellor guiding values and principles
This is archived from https://chancellor.berkeley.edu/guiding-values-and-principles Extracted text: Diversity broadly conceived and expressed in the composition of our faculty, students, and staff; and the breadth and inclusiveness of our academic programs, research enterprise, and public service Excellence an unwavering commitment to maintaining Berkeley as a research university of the very highest quality in all of its
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Jenny Martinez on Free Speech
On March 9th, 2023, students at Stanford disrupted a talk by Judge Kyle Duncan. In response, then Dean Jenny Martinez penned a detailed memo explaining Stanford Law’s commitment to free speech. In August 2023, Martinez became Stanford’s Provost.
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Harvard Faculty Organize New Academic Freedom Group
More than 50 faculty members at Harvard have founded the Council on Academic Freedom, committing to the following ideals:
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Policy on Academic Freedom (1970)
POLICY ON ACADEMIC FREEDOMApproved by The Regents on June 19, 1970Students who enroll on the campuses of the University of California are parties to a moral and contractualrelationship.in which the University, on its side, is obligated to provide quality education, to recognizestudent achievement with grades and degrees which have an accepted meaning for transfer to