Academic Freedom Doesn’t Mean Grandstanding

August 09, 2024 1 min read

Joseph M. Knippenberg
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal

Excerpt: Earlier this summer, Harvard dean Lawrence Bobo wrote an essay for the Harvard Crimson that provoked a chorus of criticism, much of it justified. Reflecting on the post-October 7 turmoil on his campus, which had led, among other things, to the resignation of President Claudine Gay, Bobo argued that faculty should be disciplined for airing the university’s dirty laundry in public.

I would like to approach Bobo’s argument by focusing on the goal that he and his critics share: the institutional independence of the university as a knowledge-seeking enterprise.

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