Various class books on wooden table.
Across the country, many commentators have noted that both freedom of expression and academic freedom have been repeatedly challenged on college campuses. A petition started by faculty at Stanford University is calling attention to threats to academic freedom.
The petition’s statement claims that academic freedom is threatened by social justice advocates:
“Employment, promotion, and funding are increasingly subject to implicit or explicit political litmus tests, including approval from bureaucrats seeking to impose a social agenda such as specific views of social justice or [diversity equity and inclusion] DEI principles. Activism is replacing inquiry and debate.”
The complaint is that projects whose questions or projected results don’t match the favored results of the DEI activists are ignored, defamed, defunded, or otherwise not pursued.
To remedy the problem, the petition advocates the adoption of the so-called “Chicago trifecta”– a series of policies first adopted at the University of Chicago. These policies include the Chicago Statement supporting untrammeled free expression, the Kalven Report limiting official university statements taking stances on political questions, and the Shils Report limiting faculty hiring criteria to teaching and research merit– to the exclusion of DEI considerations.
Beyond these policies, the petition also calls on universities to build a culture supportive of academic freedom and free expression:
“University leaders must also promote and institutionalize free speech and academic freedom by concrete actions. Freedom is a culture, not merely a set of rules, and a culture must be nurtured. Free speech, free inquiry, tolerance for opposing views, meeting such views with argument, logic and fact, abstaining from ad-hominem attacks, character assassination, doxing and other unethical behavior must be highlighted in the orientation materials for all new students and employees. Freedom comes with a culture of responsibility, but responsibilities are better enforced by social norms than by extensive rules enforced by non-academic bureaucrats.“
Although the petition has only been collecting signatures since Oct. 21, it has drawn some notable supporters, including: Greg Lukianoff, CEO of FIRE; Nadine Strossen, past ACLU President; Jonathan Haidt, co-founder of the Heterodox Academy; Michael Poliakoff, President of ACTA; Robert Kennedy, Jr.; Steven Pinker, who is the subject of a petition for banishment from the Linguistic Society of America; Dorian Abbot, who was disinvited from giving a science talk at MIT; Richard Lowery, Prof of Finance at U of Texas; Amy Wax, UPenn law professor who is being fired for her views; Stuart Reges, University of Washington CS professor who is being fired over a syllabus land acknowledgement; and Joshua T. Katz, who was fired from Princeton.
Cornell signatories include Donald Downs ‘71 (who authored Cornell ‘69 about the Willard Straight Hall Takeover), Steven Baginski ‘80 MBA ‘84, Carl Neuss ‘76, Luana Maroja PhD ‘08 (Professor at Williams College), and Kenneth P. Wolf ‘76. Cornell faculty signatories so far include: Jose Andres, Richard Bensel, Lawrence Cathles III, David B. Collum, Thomas Dyckman, Mike Fontaine, David M. Gadoury, Kevin Gagan, Stephen P. Garvey, Nicholas Guest, William A. Jacobson, Gennady Samorodnitsky, John Schimenti, Anthony Shelton, Robert Turgeon, and Randy Wayne.
Cornell’s DEI advocates have thus far monopolized faculty debates. Although Cornell has adopted a similar, weaker version of the Chicago Statement, the university has yet to adopt the Kalven Report. Additionally, Cornell requires DEI statements for all new faculty hires.
The Cornell community should support this important petition and use this occasion to reform Cornell’s policies to better promote freedom of expression and academic freedom.
