In March of 2023, a group of 15 scholars met at Princeton University to establish a set of principles meant to revitalize free inquiry on campus. The result of this meeting was published on August 9 as the Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry.
This document is targeted for adoption by colleges and universities nation-wide. Should Cornell adopt it?
Why is a fresh document needed?
Every decade, a new policy statement emerges to express the on-going concern about the threats to free expression and academic freedom on college campuses. While some of these statements take the form of single-campus policy statements and others take the form of mass petitions signed by individual faculty or alumni, a few become nationwide campaigns to seek adoption by governing bodies.
For example, the Chicago Principles on Free Speech have been adopted by 101 different universities. The Kalven Report dealing with institutional neutrality—that is to say, ending colleges taking official positions on political issues—has been adopted on fewer campuses, but addresses a related subject.
As the threats to free expression and academic freedom shift, so do the scope and emphasis of such statements. The 1940 American Association of University Professors statement grew out of targeting faculty who took unpopular views during the Great Depression.
In the 1950s, the excesses of McCarthyism and witch-hunting from the right caused many university faculties to speak out in opposition.
A few years ago, efforts to cancel or fire faculty who questioned the Black Lives Matter movement, caused free speech advocates to push back against the tactics from the left.
More recently, events in Florida and Texas, state governments’ efforts to regulate teaching about “divisive concepts” like “Critical Race Theory” or “diversity equity and inclusion” have raised a different set of academic freedom concerns.
While the Chicago Principles or the Kalven Report state solid ideals and timeless concerns, they are growing a bit dated. Fortunately, Cornell alumnus Donald A. Downs ‘71, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, has worked as the principal author with a group of faculty from across the country to draft a new policy statement.
Downs not only brings a Cornellian perspective to these issues, but he has studied them in depth since he authored Cornell ‘69: Liberalism and the Crisis of the American University (1999), which described the social and moral implications of the Willard Straight Hall takeover.
Interesting and Important Ideas
As with most such efforts, the document calls for rigorous defense of free speech. Unlike the Chicago Principles, the Princeton principles give the faculty the primary responsibility for building “a culture of free and vigorous inquiry.”
When trustees, state legislatures, or alumni step in, they “should be guided by the goal of revitalizing free and vigorous inquiry, informed by knowledge and appreciation of the conditions under which scholarship is best undertaken, students best educated, and campus life most vibrantly lived,” the document reads.
Because the document is current, it does a better job than the Chicago Principles in explaining the current threats to free expression:
The competing agendas of the contemporary “multiversity” often eclipse the core mission. Speech codes and related policies detrimental to free inquiry have proliferated. Some members of the university community argue that robust freedom of inquiry permits speech that can “harm” students’ well-being or hinder institutional efforts to attain particular conceptions of social justice or “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
On the question of fairness and due process in campus conduct proceedings, the document says the hearing panels must be “knowledgeable about academic freedom and due process, and that they [must be] sufficiently independent of the executive and legislative bodies and functions of the institution. A cardinal principle of justice, also applicable to campus life, holds that knowledgeable judges should be independent of prosecutors and legislators.”
The document endorses adding “noncoercive” training on free expression to new student orientation.
The document is wary of strings that funders may attach to academic programs:
In addition, government and private donors may fund programs devoted to fields of inquiry that they think would enhance intellectual diversity and therefore contribute to the vigor of inquiry on campus, provided they specify and justify intellectual or pedagogical reasons for the effort. Such efforts add to free inquiry rather than limiting it.
The document opposes required DEI statements or other forms of compelled speech:
Faculty, administrators, trustees and political authorities should refrain from compelling scholars and students to endorse or tacitly affirm any opinion that is not necessary for the basic academic functioning of the university. Such loyalty tests are anathema to free minds. Compelled speech includes the requirement or pressure to express agreement with political or social causes in words or deeds, as well as the obligation to provide certain answers to ideological questions, or signal (even if only implicitly) agreement with certain ideas in order to gain employment or advance in rank or status.
In short, the document hits almost every hot button issue on the current academic freedom and freedom of expression landscape to advocate in favor of freedom.
Like the Chicago Principles and the Kalven Report, the document is carefully drafted to avoid either of the political extremes of the left or the right and is centered on just the defense of academic freedom and free expression.
The roll-out has included postings by John Tomasi of the Heterodox Academy and Prof. Keith E. Whittington of Princeton University.
Many groups such as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) or the American Council Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) have developed their own multi-point shopping lists of much needed campus reforms. However, there is a short and powerful message that summarizes all of this – adopt the new Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry.
