Campus Protests and Free Expression

Nadine Strossen
Persuasion

Excerpt: The current Supreme Court term includes a cluster of cases that could well shape the future of online free speech. These cases invite the Court to determine the power of both government officials and social media platforms concerning “content moderation” policies, which in turn define platform users’ speech rights.

Given the unparalleled importance of these platforms for all manner of communication—personal, professional, and political—meaningful free speech rights depend on the platforms’ policies. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the Court’s rulings over the next weeks may well determine the shape of speech online for years to come.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling against race-based college admissions (which involved Harvard), and the likely illegality of hiring faculty based on race, colleges are beginning to ratchet back on DEI-based admissions and hiring. (Although nobody’s yet taken a college to court for requiring DEI statements, I’m betting that such statements would be banned for constituting compelled speech.)

Now that MIT banned DEI statements for faculty job applications, the other great school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard, has just followed suit. According to the two articles below, Harvard has banned diversity statements.

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: If you’re interested in the campus protests, you’ll want to read the whole thing, but I’ll just post one excerpt about the concessions that universities made to protestors. Some are serious, others performative, but all were made to stop encampments and protestors.  

Maybe I’m a grumpy old man, but I would stop illegal disruptions, like encampments, in their tracks using sanctions, and would be very loath to “bargain” with protestors who enacted illegal disruptions. (If protests are legal and student “demands” worth considering, it’s another matter. But institutional neutrality, at least a Chicago, would prohibit almost any concessions for protestors, as it did indeed.)

Emma H. Haidar and Cam E. Kettles
Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: After months of grappling with a campus fractured by a polarizing debate over the Israel-Hamas war, Harvard announced on Tuesday that the University and its leadership will refrain from taking official positions on controversial public policy issues.

The University’s new stance followed a report produced from a faculty-led “Institutional Voice” working group, which advised leadership to not “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.” Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 wrote in an email that he accepted the working group’s recommendations, which were also endorsed by the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

Emma H. Haidar and Cam E. Kettles
Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: The Harvard Corporation rejected an effort by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to confer degrees on 13 seniors facing disciplinary charges for participating in the pro-Palestine encampment, an unprecedented veto that opens a new front in the internal battles that have convulsed Harvard for the past year.

The Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, deliberated late into the night on Tuesday as it stared down an impossible decision: render Harvard College’s disciplinary processes toothless by approving the FAS-amended list or undercut the authority of the University’s largest faculty by declining to uphold their amendment.

The Editorial Board
Washington Post

Excerpt: As the United States reckoned with racial inequality during and after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, many saw Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs as a way to address the issues in higher education. As part of the trend, many schools began requiring candidates for teaching positions to submit DEI statements. In these statements, potential hires explain how they would advance diversity, equity and inclusion in their teaching and research activities. One 2021 study found that about one-third of job postings at elite universities required them.