Kalven Report Institutional Neutrality

Bobby Ramkissoon 
FIRE

Excerpt: Amid the urban hum of downtown Seattle and the friendly clatter of a FIRE supporters’ meetup, a consequential alliance was born. 

Two alumni of the University of Washington, separated by generations but united by a shared purpose, converged in conversation. Cole Daigneault, a freshly minted graduate from the class of 2024, and Bill Severson, a two-time UW graduate who earned his bachelor’s and law degree in the early 1970s, lamented over the encroaching illiberalism at their alma mater. That evening’s conversation, later sustained through an alumni email listserv, soon crystallized into Husky Alumni for Academic Excellence.

David Zimmerman
National Review

Excerpt: Harvard University president Alan Garber has told faculty members that the school needs to rethink its communications strategy after president-elect Donald Trump’s victory, which the university leader said he saw as a strong rejection of elitism among American voters.

Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Last Dec. 5, the presidents of three leading universities stepped before Congress for a hearing on campus antisemitism that was widely criticized when they failed to offer forthright responses on whether hypothetical calls for the genocide of Jews would violate their institutions’ policies. Those three presidents—representing Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—were followed by four others in two separate hearings in April and May as pro-Palestinian student protests swept campuses across the nation last spring.

Of the seven campus leaders who testified, only two remain on the job (though one was already on the way out). Here’s a look at where all seven leaders are today.

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Republicans are primed to ratchet up their efforts to hold colleges accountable after securing a majority in the House and Senate.

With President-elect Donald Trump in the White House, the table is set for the GOP to make significant progress on a higher ed wish list that includes granting federal aid to nontraditional programs, increasing taxes on wealthy colleges, cracking down on campus antisemitism and busting the current model for accreditation, experts say.

Chance Layton
National Association of Scholars

Excerpt: Today, many Americans are heading to the polls to vote for our next President and administration. We Americans will also decide which party will control both houses of Congress. There have been several successes over the last few years, thanks primarily to the actions of courts and state legislatures. Much more is to be done to reform higher education so that it better serves Americans. The National Association of Scholars has spent considerable time thinking about the various reforms we’d like to see.

Alumni Free Speech Alliance
Alma Matters, Substack

Excerpt: It's hard for free speech to flourish in a climate of fear, enforced conformity, “groupthink” and strictly policed political correctness. It's hard to speak and think freely, as a professor or a student, when any errant, unpopular, or unauthorized thought or phrase could get you canceled -- when your campus becomes a minefield through which you must tiptoe with care. If you doubt it, just ask an instructor at Harvard.

The pins and needles on which Harvard instructors walk highlight how bad things have become at our supposed bastions of free-thinking, open inquiry, and fearless truth-seeking. And the problem has only grown worse in the wake of the war in Gaza, according to a must-read story in The New York Post.