Since last week's CHE essay by Professor Ford appears to have misled a lot of folks, it might be worth quoting from a 2014 Report at the University of Chicago on "Protest and Dissent," chaired by my law colleague David Strauss, the year before the Chicago Principles, which was produced by a committee chaired by my law colleague Geoffrey Stone (and which also included input from Professor Strauss). From the 2014 Report:
In our view, dissent and protest are integral to the life of the University. Dissent and protest should be affirmatively welcomed, not merely tolerated, by the University. Especially in a university community, the absence of dissent and protest—not its presence—is a cause for concern. The passionate expression of non-conforming ideas is both a cause and an effect of the intellectual climate that defines this University in particular. In addition, dissent and protest—and public demonstrations by groups and individuals—play a role in the University’s educational mission: being a member of an educational community that values dissent and protest is, in part, how people develop as citizens of a democracy.
The absurd idea that the Chicago Principles do not protect protest is the product of a kind of flat-footed literalism that wholly ignores the university's actual practice, in addition to ignoring the explicit statements of the 2014 Report.
CHE also published my letter about Professor Ford's essay from last week, which is below the fold:
My colleague Anton Ford appears to misunderstand both the Chicago Principles, and their application to the recent protest encampment on our campus (“The Chicago Principles Are Undemocratic,” The Chronicle Review, May 6).
Professor Ford writes that, “In what would seem to many to be a flagrant violation of freedom of expression, the University of Chicago’s president, Paul Alivisatos, has threatened to break up an encampment of nonviolent student protesters” (he did end the encampment the day after Professor Ford wrote). Yet the Chicago Principles, themselves, note that the university “may reasonably regulate the time, place, and manner of expression to ensure that it does not disrupt the ordinary activities of the University,” i.e., teaching and research. The encampment, which was located proximate to many classrooms, was alleged to be interfering with teaching. It was also in violation of a longstanding and pre-existing rule prohibiting encampments on university grounds.
Professor Ford implies that the real reason for ending the encampment was that, “The Chicago Principles equate freedom of expression with freedom of discussion.” This is also not true, and rather obviously so in this case, since in his very first statement about the encampment on April 29, the university president stated that, “Given the importance of the expressive rights of our students, we may allow an encampment to remain for a short time despite the obvious violations of policy,” i.e., the policy regarding encampments on university grounds. The free expression principles here explicitly trumped the content-neutral prohibition on encampments as a form of protest, at least until the point of alleged disruption of core university functions.
There is too much one could say about the relevance of majority-rule democratic procedures to universities, but let me at least observe that the University of Chicago is not a political community, but, as the Kalven Report says, a “community of scholars.” That fact (I hope it is a fact) would require a bit more nuance in thinking about the relevance of majority-rule procedures to such a community than is in evidence in this essay.
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