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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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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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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.