Kalven Report Institutional Neutrality

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.

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.