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Michael I. Kotlikoff
New York Times
Excerpt: Cornell University recently hosted an event that any reputable P.R. firm would surely have advised against. On a calm campus, in a semester unroiled by protest, we chose to risk stirring the waters by organizing a panel discussion that brought together Israeli and Palestinian voices with an in-person audience open to all.
The week before, I extended a personal invitation to our student community, explaining that open inquiry “is the antidote to corrosive narratives” and is what enables us “to see and respect other views, work together across differences and conceive of solutions to intractable problems.”
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There is an important lawsuit being litigated in the Southern District of New York over the limits of free speech and academic freedom for faculty at the United States Military Academy at West Point. Professor Tim Bakken, West Point’s longest-serving civilian law professor, is challenging new Trump Administration regulations that allegedly constitute unconstitutional prior restraints on academic publications and limit academic freedom and free speech.
The Report, and the follow-up disciplinary reports now being issued, raise uncomfortable questions for professors and for university leaders alike. Are there limits to professors’ freedom to conduct research and teach courses however they think best? Do university leaders dare intervene if scholarship becomes excessively politicized?
The Education Department is asking university leaders to publicly commit to a series of institutional changes, many of which are in line with the Trump administration’s higher education agenda, by the end of the year.
