Kalven Report Institutional Neutrality

Jerry Coyne
Why Evolution is True

Excerpt: Over 100 universities have adopted some version of the University of Chicago’s Principle of Free Expression, also called the “Chicago Statement”: a strong version of free speech, pretty much adhering to the First Amendment. But the same doesn’t hold for another mainstay of our free-speech program: the Kalven Principles. This is the principle of institutional neutrality

I want to note that another university has just joined the three having official institutional neutrality. And that is Columbia University

Emma H. Haidar and Cam E. Kettles
The Harvard Crimson

Excerpt: Interim University President Alan M. Garber ’76 pledged to tackle “pernicious” antisemitism on Harvard’s campus, saying he is most concerned about self-censorship in the face of anti-Israel attacks in an interview Wednesday — his first since assuming office on Jan. 2.

Garber did not answer repeated questions about whether his administration would consider instituting a speech code for Harvard classrooms. But in a follow-up statement, Garber wrote that he did not support speech codes.

Randall L. Kennedy
The Harvard Crimson

Nearly forty years ago, then-University President Derek C. Bok wrote an open letter championing a libertarian ethos of free speech at Harvard that would satisfy even its most ardent defenders. His views, he noted, were “in keeping with the main lines of Constitutional thought. . . . Despite recognizing that Harvard is a private institution and thus outside the sweep of the First Amendment, Bok nevertheless maintained that Harvard should not “have less free speech than the surrounding society — or than a public university.” . . .  

The Harvard community, however, ought not be doctrinaire in its reliance on the First Amendment. Harvard should govern speech on campus according to a separate standard anchored solely by academic concerns . . . . For example, if Harvard were bound by the First Amendment, the University would be compelled to permit students to chant, in the middle of Harvard Yard, “no means yes, and yes means anal” or “send the Blacks back to Africa”or “exterminate the Jews!” — all phrases that, standing alone, are protected when uttered in a public space like Cambridge Common or the quad at the University of Massachusetts. . . . Ought Harvard be so permissive?

Eugene Volokh
Volokh Conspiracy, Reason Magazine

Excerpt: An excerpt from an opinion piece that she wrote at the Washington Post Dec. 10, but that I had missed:

    I was one of three co-chairs of Harvard's Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging, which in 2018 delivered a strategic framework for the campus…. Across the country, DEI bureaucracies have been responsible for numerous assaults on common sense, but the values of lowercase-i inclusion and lowercase-d diversity remain foundational to healthy democracy….

    We wrote [in our report]: "Our shared pursuits … depend on the open and direct expression of ideas and on criteria of evaluation established by the judgments of experts. Excellence therefore also requires academic freedom. Inclusion and academic freedom — these principles are linked in each being necessary to the pursuit of truth."

Lisa Tolin
PEN America

Excerpt: Amid its high-profile struggle around free speech on campus, Harvard University invited PEN America to convene a Free Speech Summit on Friday for 100 student leaders from Harvard and other universities.

The event kicked off with a lively keynote panel about free expression in higher education featuring PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel, Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy, and University of Chicago Dean of the College John W. Boyer, moderated by Dean of Harvard College Rakesh Khurana.

James Huffman
DC Journal

Excerpt: What will come of the presidents of three of America’s most prestigious universities being called on the congressional carpet to explain their responses to Hamas’ brutal assault on innocent Israelis?  

Will the resignations of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill and Harvard President Claudine Gay mark a turning point for American higher education? Will the leaders of other colleges and universities be encouraged to reflect on how far their institutions have strayed from their historic missions — namely, the pursuit of truth and dissemination of knowledge? Not if the lesson learned is implementing the policies implicit in the legislators’ questions.