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We have joined with 50 colleagues to create a new Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard. It’s not about us. For many years we have each expressed strong and often unorthodox opinions with complete freedom and with the support, indeed warm encouragement, of our colleagues, deans, and presidents.
Yet we know that not all is well for more vulnerable colleagues and students. Harvard ranks 170th out of 203 colleges in FIRE’s Free Speech Rankings, and we know of cases of disinvitation, sanctioning, harassment, public shaming, and threats of firing and boycotts for the expression of disfavored opinions. More than half of our students say they are uncomfortable expressing views on controversial issues in class.
Letitia James, William Tong, Kathy Jennings, Kwame Raoul, Keith Ellison, Matthew Platkin, Charity Clark and Nick Brown
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: The Supreme Court, even in striking down diversity initiatives, still made clear that universities could explore race-neutral alternatives to achieve equity. The use of socioeconomic and geographic factors is exactly such an alternative. Despite U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi’s recent nonbinding guidance warning against the use of geographic indicators as “proxies” for race, make no mistake: Abandoning consideration of these elements of an applicant’s background is not a legal requirement but a political choice, reflecting fear rather than courage.
Neetu Arnold
City Journal
Excerpt: Universities have let progressive dogma degrade their academic missions, eviscerating public faith in higher education. College leaders willing to admit this truth are rare. Vanderbilt University chancellor Daniel Diermeier is one. He has long been a champion of political neutrality and has called out the politicization of scholarly associations—approaches other university leaders are only now catching up on.
Adopting these policies and principles can be challenging for university leaders, partly because they fear how their own faculty or academic departments might respond. Yet Diermeier’s love of universities emboldens him. In a recent interview, transcribed below, he told me that education and research are “noble work,” but only if they are grounded in core principles. And he emphasized how politicization in some departments overshadows the good work conducted in others.
Tyler Coward, Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression
Excerpt: Freedom thrives when the people, not bureaucrats, decide which ideas are worthy of discussion, debate, or support. As FIRE has long argued, campus reform is necessary. But overreaching government coercion that tries to end-run around the First Amendment to impose an official orthodoxy is unacceptable. And the White House’s new Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education raises red flags.
The compact includes troubling language, such as calling on institutions to eliminate departments deemed to “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.” Let’s be clear: Speech that offends or criticizes political views is not violence. Conflating words with violence undermines both free speech and efforts to combat real threats.
