The Importance of Neutrality and Free Speech on Campus

The well-documented and increasing polarization in our society has had a decidedly negative impact on civil discourse. This divisiveness diminishes our capacity to understand and address some of today’s most complex problems. The university, which has traditionally embraced dialogue across differences, is struggling to engage and promote the practices of civil discourse. A recent exchange between two Yale faculty groups illustrates these struggles clearly.

On February 9, I received an email from two drafters of the Faculty for Yale statement inviting me to add my name to it before it went live online. The statement is meant to address widely recognized problems in higher education such as its drift from being knowledge producers and preservers to activists, concerns over free expression and the decline in public confidence in universities. Faculty for Yale aims to redress these problems in part through reaffirming principles such as free speech, institutional (not faculty or student) neutrality and faculty governance. The statement also endorses the principles laid out in two seminal reports on the university’s role in protecting free expression: Yale’s 1974 Woodward Report and the University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report. It didn’t take long for me to agree to be included as a signatory.

When the statement went live on February 13, 64 other Yale faculty members besides myself had signed. Most on the list were highly esteemed, tenured and endowed faculty—the heavy hitters of Yale. I was one of a handful who weren’t tenured and weren’t full professors, let alone endowed. I don’t know how many were racial minorities like me (I’m Black), but I’m sure there were very few, if any.

Given the makeup of such a group, one might be tempted to conclude that its statement is an example of elite self-protection. This is, in fact, the charge that was leveled by a second group of Yale faculty about Faculty for Yale. From their perspective, the Faculty for Yale signatories

... aim to return American higher education to a supposed golden age before “excellence” was allegedly sacrificed for diversity, “heterodoxy” for ideological conformity, and “neutrality” for biased research and positions. Lost in their nostalgia is that these “good old days” were times during which many if not most of Yale’s current students and faculty would have been actively excluded or allowed in only as grateful and obedient “guests.”

They go on to suggest the Faculty for Yale statement is a “Make Yale Great Again” credo full of longing for the “good ole days” when only a sliver of America lived the good life. In their view, the call from the Faculty for Yale to “reaffirm” certain values is essentially a dog whistle to return to a time of privilege and opportunity for the few and exclusion and disadvantage for the rest.

The Fundamental Flaw

Unfortunately, many contemporary arguments are like this—conflating principles with the behaviors of some of those who profess to follow them. Basically, the claim is that because certain people have misused a principle for harmful purposes or failed to live up to it, the principle is therefore dubious at best. If certain principles were established during a time of stark injustice and bigotry, those principles must necessarily be tainted by the backward mores of those times. So endorsing those values is also a social signal that you want to return to those times, with all their attendant (bigoted) culture and (unjust) social organization.

You’ve likely heard a version of this argument concerning the U.S. Constitution. Because the framers of the Constitution failed, due to their racism and sexism, at living up to the values of equality they espoused, the Constitution and the values themselves are therefore racist and sexist. It’s worth remembering, however, that the civil rights movement was so successful in no small part because of its leaders’ appealing to these very values and calling out the blatant hypocrisy of some American laws and commonplace behaviors.

When this type of argument is made—one that attaches a stigma of immorality or regressiveness to those who disagree—it has a powerful chilling effect on speech. In a university, one of the most progressive institutions on earth, who wants to be known as someone who favors greater exclusion, elitism and inequity? Socially and professionally, you’re better off remaining quiet or just going along with the side that is best at signaling morality, regardless of the merits of the argument.

A Yale colleague I sent the Faculty for Yale statement to was deliberating whether to sign the letter and asked me about the risks of doing so. “Good question,” I wrote back, and went on to say that the risks aren’t small. I told her that what’s potentially at stake is her reputation: She could be stigmatized as being anti-progress, anti-diversity and so on. This reputational damage can have enduring implications for one’s work and career advancement in institutions such as universities. 

Among the institutions in any free society, the university should be the last place where one needs to be concerned about suffering from communicating or endorsing an idea—unless, of course, the idea is clearly and egregiously wrong. The incentive structure for self-censorship and parroting “acceptable” slogans that universities are baking into the system by taking political positions should be alarming to anyone, whether you believe the university to be a place primarily for advancing knowledge or primarily for advancing justice. And the fact that this structure is increasingly becoming a part of everyday American life should be seen as a crisis for democracy.

On Principles

A more productive way of having a debate would be to address the merits of an argument and, in the case of principles such as free speech and institutional neutrality, remember what those principles are meant to be.  

Most principles or ideals are impossible to fully live up to. In research, we strive for objectivity even though there’s wide agreement that complete objectivity is unattainable. And the fact that what some people call “objective” is really just them revealing their subjectivity and bias, says nothing about the value of objectivity. It just means they have inadequately practiced objectivity, and it’s the job of others in the scientific community to point this out and offer solutions for correcting it.

In short, the solution to the violation of a worthy principle is not to blame the principle but to demand better adherence to it and create more opportunities for people to practice it. The principles of free speech and institutional neutrality should be evaluated based on whether the concepts themselves are worthwhile, not how well or poorly people have adhered to them or what cultural era they emerged from.

So, the important question should be whether the principles of free speech and institutional neutrality are worthy. That is, do they generally lead to better or worse outcomes? On the issue of free speech, both Yale groups—and I suspect most other universities—agree that this principle is of immense importance and should be robustly practiced and defended in higher education.

On institutional neutrality, however, there’s not so much agreement within Yale or across other universities. The Kalven report, which Faculty for Yale endorses, argues that the university should serve as a “home and sponsor” for faculty and student critics but should not be the critic itself. The university must assume this neutral position because any attempt at achieving a collective position would necessarily inhibit the intellectual freedom of its members. These freedoms at universities, the report says, need to be “extraordinary.”

The critics of Faculty for Yale argue that institutional neutrality is a cop-out to taking on the hard but necessary role of leading on important matters of our times. Neutrality is the “safe option” that is unacceptable and should be rejected. They believe universities can have independent and free thought and take institutional positions. However, as the editorial staff of Harvard’s student-led paper has recently concluded, the risks of taking positions include stoking culture wars and diminishing institutional credibility. I also tend to agree with the students’ statement that taking positions “neither effects change nor offers emotional comfort.”

A Threat to DEI?

One of the big questions around institutional neutrality raised by the Faculty for Yale critics and others is what it means for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, since DEI is often implemented by administrators of the institution. However, I see no inherent tension. For example, nothing in the Faculty for Yale statement requires support for or rejection of DEI. Further, the Kalven and Woodward reports both create exceptions to neutrality that pertain to matters relevant to universities’ core mission.

So is DEI core to universities’ mission? That’s a tricky question to answer because people have very different understandings of what they mean by DEI, and therefore its implementation varies widely. But it is easy to see how a diverse population—both demographically and in terms of viewpoint—and a welcoming, open environment are essential for a university to achieve its mission. In fact, I suspect there is wide agreement on these principles in higher education. The question is whether the program currently called DEI, or certain versions of it, accomplishes that.

Speaking for myself, I desire no consensus position on DEI from Faculty for Yale or administrators. I would like to see more discussion and debate on what DEI is in theory and practice, what it aims to accomplish, by what means and how we will evaluate success or failure. This is taking the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion seriously, not dismissing their significance. And the best way to discuss and debate such issues in a truly free and open way is for institutional representatives not to take an a priori stance.

A Better Way

The nature of so many of our conversations today involves the flattening of nuance. You’re a critic of anti-racism? You must be a racist, or at least tolerant of racism. You have questions about DEI? You must be a diversity obstructionist desiring white homogeneity. You want to reaffirm age-old values? You must want to return us to a time of exclusion and oppression.

It’s possible to value principles of justice, diversity, openness and inclusiveness and still criticize specific approaches to achieving them. All of us, but especially academics, who care about such principles should be open to, even eager to hear, such points of view because doing so leads to better ideas and solutions. In this age of viral social media and cancel culture, that nuanced discussion is almost certain not to happen if people fear that their livelihood is threatened for simply stating or endorsing a viewpoint.

We should also resist using the loophole in cultures of free speech that allows you to “win” or shut down the other side by accusing it of backwardness, immorality or nefarious motives. This requires another kind of recommitment to values—one focused on good-faith argumentation, including being charitable to the other side and avoiding pitfalls such as straw-manning and ascribing ill intent. In these times of widespread incivility and polarization, the academy should be among the first places society turns to find first-rate examples of these values in action.