Kalven Report Institutional Neutrality

Kathryn Palmer
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Nearly six months after the Israel-Hamas war unleashed a steady tide of student-led protests on college campuses across the United States, Indiana’s public flagship university is emerging as a free speech battleground.

The latest dispute is over the abrupt cancellation of a long-planned art exhibition at Indiana University at Bloomington’s Eskenazi Museum of Art, Samia Halaby: Centers of Energy. Halaby is an internationally recognized Palestinian American abstract artist. Critics of the decision think there’s more to the story. And while they don’t know the specific factors driving the decision, they can’t ignore the pressure IU administrators have been under since Indiana congressman Jim Banks threatened to withhold federal funding from the university if they don’t adequately address perceived antisemitism on campus.

Amanda Yen
Daily Beast

Excerpt: The House committee investigating alleged antisemitism at elite universities will subpoena Harvard University for documents relating to its handling of campus speech.

The Republican-led House Committee on Education and the Workforce announced its decision—which marks the first time a university has been served with a subpoena in the panel’s history—Friday morning in statement. It said subpoenas were necessary because Harvard failed to hand over “priority documents” to the committee, instead providing many that were already public.

Angel Eduardo
Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression

Excerpt: Last week, FIRE, along with the Academic Freedom Alliance and Heterodox Academy, released an open letter urging universities to adopt the principle of institutional neutrality articulated by the University of Chicago’s 1967 Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action, also known as the “Kalven Report.”

The Kalven Report posits the best way to guard against establishing party lines on campus — and deterring those who disagree from speaking out — is for schools to remain “the home and sponsor of critics,” rather than the critics themselves. This requires committing to “an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain[ing] an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures.”

Stella Lee and Annalisa Fang
Daily Pennsylvanian

Excerpt: Penn Political Union hosted a discussion with political science professor Ian Lustick discussing free speech and the criteria for guest speakers in a university setting.

Penn Political Union president and College sophomore Mia Antonacci moderated the event, focusing on the question of whether it is “appropriate to prohibit individuals from speaking at a university based on the falsehood of their statements.” Around 30 people attended the discussion on Feb. 7, which took place at the Perelman Center for Political Science and Economics.

Ken White
Popehat Report

Excerpt:  University students are not the greatest threat to American liberty. That sounds obvious, but you might not know if you listened to popular discourse about universities. Universities, we’re told, are hotbeds of ruthless woke kulturkampf, indoctrinating students into far-left ideology and giving them an unslakable thirst for censorship that will be unleashed on America upon their graduation.

I dissent for several reasons. First, and most importantly, the greatest threat to American freedom of speech comes from our elected leaders. Second, a substantial part of the tumult about university students is right-wing kayfabe. The hostility towards students is often hostility against a set of values most popular with students — views about ethnic diversity, gender, and sexuality.

Susan Svrluga
Washington Post

Excerpt:  Students returned to Harvard’s campus last month after a turbulent and polarized start to the academic year, one punctuated by protests, a disastrous congressional hearing and the resignation of the university’s first Black president. The school has been sharply divided over the Israel-Gaza war; diversity, equity and inclusion efforts; and the limits of free expression. It has been attacked by politicians, wealthy alumni and its own students, a rare sign of vulnerability for one of the country’s most powerful and influential academic institutions.