Kalven Report Institutional Neutrality

PEN America Press Release

Excerpt: PEN America today sharply criticized some Republican members of Congress for their recent actions scrutinizing academic decision-making at the Naval Academy, including insinuating that an invitation to scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat to deliver a lecture could violate federal law, which led to the event’s cancellation.

Ryann Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Liviu Matei knows firsthand what it looks like when an authoritarian leader seeks to reshape higher education. Matei was provost at Central European University when the parliament led by Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s prime minister, passed a law in 2017 essentially forcing his institution out of the country. The law supposedly targeted foreign branch campuses, but many saw it as an attack on a university founded by liberal Hungarian American financier George Soros.

The situation became a worldwide “cause célèbre of academic freedom,” Matei said during a panel Wednesday. But he added that “you might be surprised to hear that there was almost no discussion about academic freedom in Europe between the fall of the Berlin Wall” and the new millennium.

Columbia Spectator
Rebecca Massel

Excerpt: Columbia temporarily suspended Business School assistant professor Shai Davidai’s campus access, University spokesperson Millie Wert confirmed in a statement to Spectator on Tuesday.

Davidai publicized the University’s decision to restrict him from campus in a video posted to his Instagram account on Tuesday evening. In the video, he said “the University has decided to not allow me to be on campus anymore. My job. Why? Because of Oct. 7. Because I was not afraid to stand up to the hateful mob. And because I was not afraid to expose Mr. fucking Cas Holloway.”

Matt Taibbi and Racket Staff
Racket News

Excerpt: In his new “FOIA Files” writeup of the 1,400 pages of Freedom of Information documents Racket received from the University of California, Irvine, James Rushmore highlights an extraordinary Academic Advisory Board meeting, convened at the height of the pandemic in December, 2020.

In it, UC faculty members are so angry about academics defying Covid-19 consensus, they start to re-think academic freedom.

Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Vanderbilt University chancellor Daniel Diermeier has emerged as a strong advocate for institutional neutrality in recent years, arguing that institutions often go beyond their core mission when they strike stances on public issues. He expounded on those views in an interview with Inside Higher Ed in which he discussed the growing number of institutions that have adopted institutional neutrality and how tensions in the Middle East and related protests on campuses are driving university leaders to rethink how they engage on contentious issues at home and abroad.

Robby Soave
Reason Magazine

Excerpt: While other educational institutions pulled back on their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, the University of Michigan doubled down, spending nearly $250 million since 2016 on employees and programming that fill this ever-expanding niche.

The verdict? Spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and countless hours, specifically designing plans to make the campus more equitable, diverse, tolerant, and affirming of minority students…backfired utterly.