Two core principles of higher education—academic freedom and free expression—are under great stress. Sometimes, the stress is direct: Guest speakers are silenced by the heckler’s veto. Government actors overreach in their legitimate oversight role to prescribe or proscribe subjects and scholarly approaches, and by suggesting that the mere discussion of divisive concepts could result in sanctions. Well-intended attempts to bolster diversity and inclusion sometimes link hiring, tenure, and promotion to affirming disputed views about equality and how to advance it. Sometimes the stress is indirect, a matter of culture. A faculty member drafting a syllabus decides it is too risky to assign a classic but controversial text. Students hold back from making an argument in class for fear of being ostracized.
More broadly, faculty, student, and staff speech are constrained in a polarized national political environment, in which social media is a megaphone that amplifies campus controversies. Evidence is ample that the intellectual climate on many college campuses impairs discussion of matters about which Americans passionately disagree. The traditional understanding of free speech as a liberalizing force is itself being called into question. Some institutions have responded to these pressures with determined efforts to uphold free expression and academic freedom and to teach these principles to a new generation, but more must be done across the higher education sector.
The chilling of campus speech has effects beyond the borders of the campus. Rather than alleviating the political polarization in our nation today, the inhibition of campus speech is degrading the civic mission of higher education. To maintain our pluralistic democracy, colleges and universities must prepare students for civic participation as independent thinkers who can tolerate contrary viewpoints and work constructively with those with whom they have principled disagreements.
The president and the leadership team are uniquely positioned to safeguard campus free expression and academic freedom. To do so, they must act not only as emergencies arise but consistently to support a culture of healthy academic freedom and free expression. The character and means of maintaining such a culture will vary according to the missions and histories of different campus communities. Each president and leadership team must reflect on and affirm academic freedom and free expression.
Presidents and their leadership teams must take on four challenges:
- They must acknowledge the potential tension between upholding free expression and maintaining an inclusive and respectful learning environment for all. Everyone who understands the high stakes of teaching and research knows that permissible speech can cause people to feel hurt or excluded from the collegiate community. While some expression may be hurtful, freedom of expression remains an essential condition of the genuine inclusiveness that characterizes communities of teachers and learners. It also remains essential to higher education’s academic and civic missions.
- Presidents and their leadership teams should champion a diversity of viewpoints on campus. Introducing students to a wide range of perspectives, while giving them the tools to listen carefully and to distinguish between stronger and weaker arguments, is at the heart of teaching. It is also essential preparation for the rigors of citizenship in a diverse society. Although presidents only occasionally teach students directly, they can spend some of their ample capital on making viewpoint diversity an institutional priority and demonstrate their support for it in their own speech and practices.
- Presidents and their leadership teams should support strong policies for the protection of academic freedom and free expression for students and faculty and the consistent application of these policies to unorthodox and unconventional views, including those disfavored by most community members. Such policies should include an orientation for students, faculty, and staff, including the leadership team itself, on the meaning and significance of free expression and academic freedom.
- Presidents and their leadership teams should make the skills and dispositions necessary for academic and civic discourse a central aim of the collegiate experience. Absent such skills and dispositions, formal protections for free expression and academic freedom, though necessary, are insufficient to create a culture of open inquiry and respectful, productive debate on campus and in our country. Matriculating students typically need coaching and instruction in these skills and dispositions, for want of which our national discourse suffers. Colleges should strive to graduate students who raise the bar for serious discourse. At the same time, the culture of academic freedom and free expression is not just for students; presidents and their leadership teams should consider how they observe these principles in their dealings with each other, as well as with students, faculty, and staff.
Presidents face considerable challenges in preserving free expression and academic freedom. Although no presidential cabinet is responsible for curing the ills of higher education nationally, this moment presents significant opportunities for presidents to make a positive impact at their institutions.
In this guide, we first examine the role of presidents and their leadership teams and explain the nature and importance of the twin values of free expression and academic freedom. Next, we survey some important changes in our social, political, and campus landscapes. Finally, we present a roadmap with recommendations for presidents seeking to invigorate a culture of robust yet respectful inquiry on their campuses.