Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

Millsaps College fired a faculty member for expressing a political opinion to students in an email

FIRE has the details, and I hope they will sue the college.

(Thanks to John Casey for the pointer.)

Still more on the Franke case at Columbia Law School

Here.

The Katherine Franke case at Columbia Law School

More details here.  As usual (recall Norman Finkelstein and Steven Salaita), vigorous support for the Palestinians and vigorous criticism of Israel waives ordinary First Amendment and academic freedom rights in America.

"The right-wingification of UT Austin"

Alarming developments that, if they continue, will make it harder to sustain a top philosophy department.

How not to be popular with your colleagues in English

Write things like this:

Over the past 10 years, I have watched in horror as academe set itself up for the existential crisis that has now arrived. Starting around 2014, many disciplines — including my own, English — changed their mission. Professors began to see the traditional values and methods of their fields — such as the careful weighing of evidence and the commitment to shared standards of reasoned argument — as complicit in histories of oppression. As a result, many professors and fields began to reframe their work as a kind of political activism.

In reading articles and book manuscripts for peer review, or in reviewing files when conducting faculty job searches, I found that nearly every scholar now justifies their work in political terms. This interpretation of a novel or poem, that historical intervention, is valuable because it will contribute to the achievement of progressive political goals. Nor was this change limited to the humanities. Venerable scientific journals — such as Nature — now explicitly endorse political candidates; computer-science and math departments present their work as advancing social justice. Claims in academic arguments are routinely judged in terms of their likely political effects.

I think this turn from teaching and scholarship to political activism is much worse in some fields, like English, than in many others, but, alas, the worst offenders may have poisoned the public understanding of the universities.  "Disciplines" (it's not clear they are scholarly disciplines) that fit Professor Clune's characterization do not belong in the Humboldtian university.  See, e.g.  (And recall some of the nincompoops quoted here, all communications and English faculty.)

University of Sydney's bizarre new "free [sic] speech" policy

Reader Will Moisis writes:

You may be interested in the University of Sydney’s extraordinary hamfisted attempt at limiting free speech on their campus.

They received 51 submissions, and the report recommends:

“Mr Hodgkinson acknowledges that academic freedom and freedom of speech are fundamental to the University and that these rights are limited by the law. While freedom of speech does not permit the use of hate speech or vilification, the report notes that difficulties arise when different parties have divergent views on the legitimate use of words or phrases because the intended meaning of the speaker has not been made clear.  

The report proposes that the University implement a new civility rule that requires any speaker using University facilities to make the meaning of contested words and phrases clear to the audience.”

How would they go about this? 

NYT account of how the Congressional assault on Universities last Spring...

...led the schools to crack down on lawful political expression that House Republicans did not like.  Universities were running scared before Trump's election; imagine what next year will bring.

UPDATE:  Dr. Roger Albin at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor writes:

Thanks for posting the NYT piece on the crackdown on protests at universities. While I agree with much of what was written, I think this piece neglects an important component. The pro-Palestinian protest movement had many of the features of a typical undergraduate fad.  Participants graduate, fervor diminishes once away from campus, and much of the impetus dissapates.  In addition, what I observed here was a good deal of immature conduct. This was not the disciplined Civil Rights movement. To a considerable extent, our University administrators gave the protestors enough rope to hang themselves and the protesters did enough stupid stuff to make shutting them down fairly easy. 

An amusing polemic about the academy by an ex-academic whose specialty is...

...pissing on academia.  Some of it, admittedly, is self-serving and stupid, but some of it has enough truth in it to be amusing.  For example:

Over the last 10 years or so, a cultural revolution has been imposed on this country from the top down. Its ideas originated in the academy, and it’s been carried out of the academy by elite-educated activists and journalists and academics. (As has been said, we’re all on campus now.) Its agenda includes decriminalization or nonprosecution of property and drug crimes and, ultimately, the abolition of police and prisons; open borders, effectively if not explicitly; the suppression of speech that is judged to be harmful to disadvantaged groups; “affirmative” care for gender-dysphoric youth (puberty blockers followed by cross-sex hormones followed, in some cases, by mastectomies) and the inclusion of natal males in girls’ and women’s sports; and the replacement of equality by equity — of equal opportunity for individuals by equal outcomes for designated demographic groups — as the goal of social policy.

It insists that the state is evil, that the nuclear family is evil, that something called “whiteness” is evil, that the sex binary, which is core to human biology, is a social construct. It is responsible for the DEI regimes, the training and minders and guidelines, that have blighted American workplaces, including academic ones. It has promulgated an ever-shifting array of rebarbative neologisms whose purpose often seems to be no more than its own enforcement: POC (now BIPOC), AAPI (now AANHPI), LGBTQ (now LGBTQIA2S+), “pregnant people,” “menstruators,” “front hole,” “chest feeding,” and, yes, “Latinx.” It is joyless, vengeful, and tyrannical. It is purist and totalistic. It demands affirmative, continuous, and enthusiastic consent.

Clearly some truth to this, though this stuff is mostly confined to the feebler parts of the humanities and social sciences [sic], plus of course the schools of education and social work, and the various "studies" programs.  It has made inroads, sadly, into philosophy over the quarter-century, as we have had occasion to document on many occasions.

J.D. Vance on the universities

Here's the infamous speech.   Zieg Heil baby!

(Thanks to Rob Kar for the pointer.)

The new Republican initiative for higher education in states they control: "Western Civilization" centers (sometimes called "civics" centers or variations on that)

They have been created at the University of Florida at Gainesville, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Often they reference the "principles of a free society," meaning a capitalist society, not a society free of wage slavery.  The motivation for creating them is plainly political, but in the abstract it's hard to quarrel with more money for faculty lines to teach ancient Greek and Roman philosophy and the history of modern philosophy.  Republican legislators are sufficiently ignorant that they do not realize how politically radical many of the so-called "Great Books" are, so the more teaching of them, the better one might think!

The difficulty, of course, is that many of the hires at these programs make them look like they are also using a political litmus test, which is unlawful for the same reason that "diversity statements" are unlawful in faculty hiring at public universities:  public universities cannot discriminate based on the political viewpoint of applicants.   So if you advertise for scholars to teach ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, a red flag should go up if everyone hired turns out be a political conservative or libertarian.  Sooner or later, some rejected candidate will have to sue, and the actual hiring process will be subjected to the sunlight of discovery.

FIRE responds to AAUP's very bad statement on "diversity" statements in faculty hiring

Here, a propos this.

AAUP is now irrelevant to the fight for academic freedom

Oh how the mighty have fallen; Committee A of the AAUP used to be a reliable defender of academic freedom, but since its capture by the enemies of academic freedom, it has been going downhill fast.   The latest absurd statement in defense of "diversity statements" reflects pretty clearly the influence of UC Davis law professor Brian Soucek (a member of Committee A), whose mistaken views we have discussed many times before (see especially).   Let me quote the appropriately scathing comments of Professor Tyler Harper (Bates College) from Twitter:

The AAUP statement insisting that mandatory DEI statements are compatible with academic freedom—and not political litmus tests—is ridiculous. DEI is not a neutral framework dropped from the sky, it’s an ideology about which reasonable people—including people of color—disagree.  I have benefited from and support affirmative action, and there are some things that fall under the rubric of DEI that I agree with. But pretending that DEI is not a political perspective or framework—when only people of one political persuasion support DEI—is a flagrant lie.  Evaluating a professor’s teaching with respect to their adherence to a DEI framework is a clear violation of academic freedom. DEI is not some bland affirmation that diversity is important and all people deserve accessible education. It’s a specific set of ideas.

Professor Harper adds:  "Recent events should have made clear that professors, particularly those of us on the left, must defend academic freedom without compromise, even when we disagree with how others use that freedom. When academic freedom is softened, we are always the ones who end up losing."

The Republican war on higher education, version 2.0

Here's what's coming down the pike, and it may be a catastrophe for higher education in America:

Top Republicans are threatening to pull billions of dollars of federal funding from some of the most prestigious universities in the US, stripping them of official accreditation to punish them for allowing pro-Palestinian protests on their campuses.

The Guardian has reviewed a video recording of a meeting in Washington last week between House majority leader Steve Scalise and the powerful pro-Israel lobby group the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). In it, Scalise outlined how he planned to unleash a massive attack against universities that fail to squash criticism of Israel.

The offensive, which would be coordinated with the White House should Donald Trump win the presidential race in November, could even threaten the existence of universities, Scalise warned. He talked about revoking accreditation, the system by which higher education institutions are approved and to which the bulk of federal funds are tied.

“Your accreditation is on the line,” Scalise said. “You’re not playing games any more, or else you’re not a school any more"....

Mount Royal University was wrong to fire tenured professor in 2021

So ruled an arbitrator, who also found the professor's conduct did warrant discipline (earlier coverage):

When it came to [Professor] Widdowson's firing, [the arbitraror] wrote that there was just cause for discipline based on Widdowson's conduct, but that dismissal was not an appropriate penalty.

However, the decision states that Widdowson's continued employment with the university would not be viable for a number of reasons, including Widdowson's ongoing hostility toward the university and colleagues, witness testimony that stated her return to the university would be disruptive, and her "persistence" throughout the arbitration hearing that a number of tweets investigated did not constitute harassment.

Instead, the arbitrator suggested a monetary payment, rather than reinstatement with lesser penalties.

What a strange case, all growing out of a "Twitter war"!

(Thanks to Joshua Selby for the pointer.)

"The Law and Philosophy of Academic Freedom"

I gave this public lecture earlier this week at Providence College, and the College kindly has made a recording available:

I thought the Q&A was productive as well.  My thanks to Professor Chris Arroyo and his colleagues for a warm welcome and good discussion.

UPDATE:  At the request of some readers, here is the handout the audience had:  Download Law and Phil Academic Freedom Leiter

Department of Education's OCR creates massive exception for faculty's contractual right to academic freedom

We mentioned not long ago the firing of an anti-Zionist tenured professor at Muehlenberg College, and now the Office of Civil Rights report on the case is public.  It contains two pieces of information of significance. 

First, OCR says there were "repeated reports in a single semester regarding a professor’s classroom statements and social media posts that created a potential hostile environment for Jewish students."  Faculty have no right under AAUP standards to utilize classroom time for political statements unrelated to their subject-matter.  If, as CHE reports and the OCR implies, Professor Finkelstein did that, she could be sanctioned for it.  The OCR report also says that "the college received...allegations, which the college confirmed, that the professor had entered the Hillel space on campus, photographed a student fundraising display for 'the various war efforts in Israel' and posted denigrating comments on Instagram regarding the students."   This also seems to me unprotected behavior:  students have a reasonable expectation that their lawful political speech on campus will not be photographed by faculty for purposes of extramural denigration of them.

Much more alarming, however, is that the OCR has now put its imprint on the proposition that there is a "Title VI obligation to take steps reasonably calculated to redress any hostile environment related to shared ancestry affecting the education program or activity, if one exists, even if the conduct occurs on private social media and involves political speech. Students had reported significant anxiety and fear resulting from the professor’s comments in class and on social media that impacted their access to education" (emphasis added).  The idea that the lawful extramural speech in private about political topics can form the basis for sanctioning a faculty member is a massive infringement on the existing contractual rights of academic freedom under AAUP standards.  The fact that students reporting "anxiety and fear" based on "comments...on social media" can be a factor a college may consider in imposing sanctions is not just a "weaponizing" of Title VI, it turns Title VI into a nuclear warhead directed at otherwise lawful political speech by faculty.

Tenured professor in Wisconsin stripped of tenure for making pornographic videos with his wife in his spare time

A bizarre case, and Professor Gow should sue.  The University was within rights to strip him of his administrative role in light of his "hobby," which arguably would affect his ability to discharge university business.  But he has a First Amendment right to make pornography, and I can't see how a public university can fire him from his tenured position for exercising that right.

(Thanks to Gregory Mayer for the pointer.)

Tenured professor at Muehlenberg College fired for lawful extramural speech in support of Palestine and against Zionism

There is an account at The Intercept, with a quote from AAUP officials who are on this case (I hope FIRE and the AFA are too).  On the facts reported, the college has acted illegally.  This looks to be another example of weaponizing Title VI for purposes of punishing lawful political speech.  Please email me if you have other details/information about this case.

(Thanks to Liam Murphy for the pointer.)

UPDATE:  Here's the AAUP letter to the college.  It's fine, if a bit too reticent.  What the college needs is to get a credible lawyer letter informing them that they are going to be sued for breach of contract if they try to fire Professor Finkelstein for her political speech.  (Absent evidence that her political speech manifests itself in discriminatory behavior in the classroom, there is no basis for sanctiniong her under AAUP standards.)

(Thanks to Michael Risch for the pointer to the AAUP letter.)

Academic freedom abolished at Penn

Very embarrassing for a major research unversity.  Penn faculty will need to watch their mouths!  Somehow Northwestern, a roughly peer university to Penn, has managed to permit an actual Nazi apologist to remain on its faculty for decades, without violating its contractual obligations to uphold the AAUP requirements of academic freedom.  (I guess the writing was on the wall two years ago at Penn!)  Penn will end up in court over this.  They deserve to lose, and lose badly.

U of Michigan faculty committee recommends adopting "institutional neutrality" and other principles related to expression and academic freedom (CORRECTED)

The 131-page report on "diversity of thought and freedom of expression" is here, and the news release is here.  Philosopher Chandra Sripada, who was on the faculty committee that prepared the report, summarizes the main themes:  'It endorses and defends institutional neutrality. It documents, via comments solicited from about 4,000 faculty, staff and students, that progressive voices are often seen as dominating the conversation, and those with dissenting perspectives often feel silenced. And it advocates for a standing University-wide 'initiative' to expand diversity of thought."

Academics looking to get out of Florida...

...because of the erosion of tenure and academic freedom;

A survey of professors at Florida universities found that new state government limits on tenure and academic freedom, plus the state’s political climate, have prompted many of them to apply for jobs outside the Sunshine State.

Of approximately 350 faculty working almost exclusively in Florida public institutions, 135 — 39% — reported that since 2022 they have applied for a job in higher education in another state. Popular destinations include California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New York.

There are more details of the findings at the link, above.

University of Wisconsin system adopts a version of the Kalven Report ("institutional neutrality")

Here

(Thanks to Gregory Mayer for the pointer.)

Richard Hofstadter's commencement address at Columbia in June 1968

Lots of it is still relevant to our own time, unsurprisingly.  His conception of the university is also essentially that of the Kalven Report, which despite the current fad of lying about it or misrepresenting it, is still the only viable conception for a research university.

(Thanks to Chris Haufe for the pointer.)

Is it a "problem" that there are so few political "conservatives" in the American academy?

Most contributors to the interesting CHE symposium seem to agree it is, which by my lights is tantamount to admitting that they don't think their academic fields are Wissenschaften.  My essay takes a rather different approach:

That someone is a “conservative” is as relevant to a faculty appointment as the fact that they prefer the Rolling Stones to the Beatles, or rock climbing to chess. Political tastes deserve as much consideration as other personal characteristics when it comes to hiring scholars, which is to say, they deserve none. (Indeed, to consider political tastes at all is illegal at public universities, one of the problems with “diversity” statements.) I’ll return, below, to the possible exceptions to the preceding, but the rule is clear enough.

The Humboldtian ideal of the university, to which we in the U.S. are self-consciously heirs, is one in which the only subjects taught are those that are “scientific” (wissenschaftlich), in the German sense of that term. Scientific fields involve rigorous and teachable methods for investigating and acquiring knowledge about their subject matters. In the Humboldtian university of the 19th century — when Germany was the world leader in almost every academic discipline — Wissenschaft included not only the natural sciences, but history, classics, and many other “human” (or social) sciences. Max Weber’s plea for “value neutrality” in the human sciences was made against this background: A scientific method, Weber argued, is not a politically partisan method.

These days there is a tendency, especially in the feebler parts of the academy, to scoff at the Weber/Humboldt ideal, which draws a bright line between science and politics. This is a mistake, even if the relationship between partisan political values and Wissenschaft is more complex than Weber allowed. Political and moral values, for example, can influence the choice of what to study with scientific methods: Should a scholar investigate the role of the capitalist class in Hitler’s seizure of power, or the relationship between race and intelligence? Political and moral values may also affect tolerance for the weakness of supposedly scientific methods (think of the methodological intransigence of neoclassical macroeconomics despite decades of predictive failures)....

Reforming those defective scientific disciplines is difficult, given academic freedom, but it should not be done in terms of parochial and highly context-sensitive "conservative" and "liberal" categories.  As Mark Lilla, a humanities professor at Columbia, candidly admits:

Today genuine conservatives who fit within the long tradition of thought that includes Edmund Burke, David Hume, and Michael Oakeshott are increasingly rare birds. Conservatism, in the old sense, has not changed. Rather, Republican politicians, many think tanks, and right-leaning young people who live online have abandoned the tradition and embraced instead Trumpian populism and far-right reactionary influencers who recycle many old fascist ideas.

It's true that fascists are underrepresented in the academy.  Is that a problem to be fixed?

The specter of Garcetti is haunting the American academy

Even if Trump doesn't win in November, one can expect more and more red states to push the line that public university faculty speech is "government speech," and subject to government control--the latest being Indiana and Purdue Universities!  (See also.)

Hobart & William Smith politics professor to return to the classroom this fall...

...after her unlawful suspension for her lawful but "incorrect' extamural speech.   Professor Jodi Dean issued the following statement (which shows how Title VI can be weaponized by the right-wing against universities):

I want to thank everyone who signed, shared, and contributed to crafting the petition supporting academic freedom and calling for my reinstatement. The support of thinkers and scholars across a range of views helped demonstrate the egregious wrong of suspending a faculty member for speaking out in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. Many who signed took real professional risk as the crackdown against the movement to end occupation and genocide intensifies such that having your name on a list can subject you to investigation and cancellation.

One of the means of oppression of faculty in the United States is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. The Department of Education has issued several "Dear Colleague" letters instructing university administrators to be vigilant in ensuring that campuses are free from discrimination and harassment. My institution interpreted this to require removing me from the classroom in case there might have been students who felt threatened by an essay published on the Verso blog. The institution then hired an outside investigator who repeatedly solicited complaints about me from HWS students. Over 100 members of the community were contacted and asked if they had information relevant to an investigation as to whether I had violated HWS policies or standards prohibiting harassment and discrimination. The investigator called this “targeted outreach.”  My lawyer complained about this repeated solicitation but it went on and on. These efforts failed to turn up a single complaint of any illegal conduct on my part (although it did turn up reports of feeling hurt, threatened, and frightened). The investigator concluded that I did not harass or discriminate against anyone and I have been exonerated of these charges. 

The end of academic freedom in Florida? The courts will decide

As I feared, Florida is indeed pushing the envelope on Garcetti and taking the position that faculty speech in the classroom at a public university is under the control of the state government:

Last Friday, Cooper told the three 11th Circuit judges that professors’ speech in the classroom is government speech, and “the state, when it is the speaker, it can choose what it wants to say.” Cooper said a state can “insist that professors not offer—or espouse, I should say, and endorse—viewpoints that are contrary to the state’s.”

One of the three judges on the panel, a Donald Trump appointee, later asked a question that showed how far Cooper’s argument could extend. The judge posed a hypothetical about how much the state could limit classroom teaching if the judges were to accept Cooper’s arguments: “Could a legislature prohibit professors from saying anything negative about a current gubernatorial administration?”

Cooper replied: “I think, your honor, yes, because in the classroom the professor’s speech is the government’s speech and the government can restrict professors on a content-wide basis and restrict them from offering viewpoints.”

Risa Lieberwitz, general counsel for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), told Inside Higher Ed that “the state of Florida is making an extreme argument about the First Amendment that would eliminate academic freedom completely in the classroom, and that is an argument without merit under the First Amendment.”

If the 11th Circuit buys this argument, the Supreme Court will have to weigh in on the reach of Garcetti, and whether there is an exception for public university faculty.

ADDENDUM:  Being an instinctive authoritarian, Florida's Viktor DeSantis also recently vetoed all grants for the arts in Florida.  At least, he didn't denounce the arts as degenerate!

Giorgia Meloni is a neo-Nazi in her soul...

...but you can't say that if you're a prominent Italian academic.  Italian defamation law is very different from American (and even British) law:  there is both civil and criminal defamation, and one can even bring an action for "insult"!   The result is the current fiasco, that is the subject of the prior link.

(Thanks to Allonso Murríel Perez for the pointer.)

Harvard to adopt Chicago's Kalven Report, after getting burned by pontificating administrators this past fall

That's the good news.  The bad news is that two Harvard professors (including philosopher Alison Simmons) felt the need to try to pretend what their committee recommended was different from the Kalven Report.   Just reading the latter makes clear how inapt their characterization of it is--it stood for a lot more than "neutrality."  It was predicated precisely on a statement of the university's values and missions, and made clear the University and its officers and units should always be free to speak in support of those (including the university's admissions policies).  Even if Harvard narcissism prevents them from acknowledging it, I am glad they have adopted Kalven principles--the university's leaders, but also its faculty, will be better for it.

(Thanks to Jerry Coyne for calling this to my attention.)

Another journal that can't follow its own procedures: the case of "The New Bioethics"

I had never heard of this journal previously, and I can't imagine anyone wanting to submit to it (unless the article is utterly anodyne) in light of its recent misconduct.   Briefly:  Dr. Perry Hendricks, a recent PhD in philosophy from Purdue University, submitted a paper to a special issue on the end of Roe v. Wade; the article was revised in response to two referee reports, then conditionally accepted pending minor changes (which were made), and then officially accepted for publication (I have seen the acceptance email, it is unambiguous). 

That's when the trouble started, as recounted here;  a Twitter mob, incensed by the title of the article ("Abortion Restrictions are Good for Black Women") after it was uploaded to PhilPapers, went on a rampage, leading the journal to put the publication on "hold," solicit two new referee reports (one mixed, one negative), and then rescind the acceptance.  Dr. Hendricks received an email from Matthew James, the editor of the journal, who teaches at St. Mary's University in London (he does not hold a PhD in philosophy or in any subject, but he does have MA degrees).  Mr. James claimed that due to a technical failure, he had not seen the article prior to the original acceptance; he explained that in his view the article did not meet the journal's standards (contrary to the earlier referee reports which led to acceptance) and also offered the following observations:

Legitimate academic debate should not be reserved for scholars of a particular race or gender, or ought to be off-limits for certain scholars.  Nevertheless, in cases such as this one where white authors write about racial inequalities, or when male authors write about women's rights, this needs to be done with a considerable degree of circumspection, humility, and sensitivity.  This manuscript falls short in that regard....

"Transgender politics and academic witchhunts"

A video of the recent event at Cornell with philosophers Kathleen Stock and Rebecca Tuvel (earlier [link fixed]).

"Protest" at the University of Chicago

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:

UChicago President Alivisatos's explanation for ending the encampment

This is a pretty good statement; a short excerpt (relevant to yesterday's post):

Protest is a strongly protected form of speech in the University of Chicago culture, enshrined in the Chicago Principles for a reason. In times of discord, protest serves as a mechanism for democratic societies, and places of reason like universities, to find a way back toward dialogue and compromise. This has value even if protests result in disruption or violate the rules—up to a point. When a protest substantially interferes with the learning, research and operations of the university, when it meaningfully diminishes the free-expression rights of others—as happened with this encampment—then it must come to an end, through dialogue or intervention.

Some pretty clear audio evidence that the UChicago encampment was interfering with teaching

Professor Laura Zoloth, from UChicago's Divinity School, confirms that this is an audio recording of a graduate seminar trying to discuss an article by Charles Taylor with noise from the encampment protest in the background (or the 'foreground' as it were!).  This is pretty bad!

A brief comment on philosopher Anton Ford's commentary on the "Chicago Principles" in CHE

If I have time I may say more about this odd and very misleading essay by my colleague Anton Ford (it's a shame we did not have an opportunity to discuss this before he published it, since I might have saved him from some obvious errors).  He writes:

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....

The encampment, as we discussed the other day, was alleged to be interfering with teaching in the surroudning classrooms; it was also, in any case, in violation of a pre-existing, content-neutral prohibition on encampments on university grounds, which exists for all the obvious reasons.  It's central to the "Chicago Principles" and any sensible rules on freedom of expression that such expression can be restricted in a content-neutral way for the sake of the ordinary activities of the university (teaching and research).  But Anton suggests, instead, that the encampment was broken up because, "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 trumped the content-neutral prohibition on encampments as a form of protest.

I may say a bit more about this curious piece, but let me note 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-vote procedures to such a community than is in evidence in this essay.

Some thoughts about the "encampment" at the University of Chicago (and its end)

(I started drafting this on the evening of May 6--the "encampment" was disbanded in the early hours of May 7, a topic I will address, below)

For a week (since Monday, April 29), there has been an "encampment" at the University of Chicago protesting a variety of things (more on that, below), but primarily, the University's "involvement" with Israel  given the atrocities it is committing in Gaza.  The encampment violates what are known as "time, place, and manner" regulations regarding speech and protest:  e.g., there is a bar on "encampments" on university grounds (for fairly obvious reasons, or they would proliferate, and not only by students!) that is general, and applies to all political points of view.  Despite that, the University President Paul Alivisatos (a very eminent chemist, who was previously Provost at Berkeley) took the view last Monday 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," the policy being the aforementioned content-neutral prohibition on encampments.  I think that was the right decision, since the expression at issue involves speech on matters of great political importance right now, so unless the encampment posed serious problems it should be allowed to remain.

By Friday of last week, the President asserted that the time had come for the encampment to end because,

The encampment has created systematic disruption of campus. Protesters are monopolizing areas of the Main Quad at the expense of other members of our community. Clear violations of policies have only increased. Our students have issued a torrent of reports of disrupted classroom learning. Other disruptions include repeated destruction of an approved installation of Israeli flags, shouting down speakers they disagree with, vandalism and graffiti on historic buildings, incorporating walkways into the encampment, and co-opting the University flagpole to fly the Palestinian flag.

The most serious consideration here concerns "disrupted classroom learning," and I'll return to that in a moment.  Those responsible for removing Israeli flags or vandalism should be subjected to university disciplinary proceedings as individuals; such incidents do not justify ending the protest and encampment, except under an indefensible principle of collective punishment.  (That is one reason I did not sign this letter calling for the University to end the encampment; drafted, I am told, by Dorian Abbot [whose earlier maltreatment by a "woke" mob we discussed], the signatories are mostly part of UChicago Free, a group started by Professor Abbot and which I quit when it became clear many (vocal) members had no principled commitment to free speech or academic freedom, but were instead utilizing the group and its listserve as a grievance and self-pity forum for conservatives--the exceptions to the latter characterization among the signatories  [including some friends I respect] are those moved, I suspect, by their loyalty to Israel.)

MIT to eliminate use of diversity statements in faculty hiring

Let us hope this is the start of a trend:  MIT President Kornbluth said, “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”   "Diversity" statements, like "teaching statements," don't work, because talk is cheap and anyone can learn how to recite the required pablum.  Of course, their real purpose was probably not to insure that faculty were "competent" to teach "diverse" students (whatever that means).

The "Executive Unbound": University President edition

Law professor and public law scholar David Pozen (Columbia) uses recent events at Columbia to look at university governance, drawing some striking analogies with problems familiar from American constitutional and administrative law.

More peaceful protesters subjected to manhandling and arrest: the case of Purchase College

Philosopher Emiliano Diaz, Chair of the Department at Purchase College (one of the smallest colleges in the State University of New York System) writes with a long account of the disturbing response to peaceful protests at his school and the aftermath:

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Philosophy students at SUNY Purchase have been deeply involved in the pro-palestinian protests on campus.  Sabrina Thompson, a junior in philosophy and president of the Philosophy Society, has been a key organizer.  

On the night of Thursday, May 2, a group of students, led by Thompson and others, attempted to establish an encampment on campus near the dormitories.  They were eventually persuaded not to set up tents, but they were steadfast in their commitment to remain.  At 10pm, when the university quiet hours began, they sat silent in observance of the student code of conduct.  This is when police moved in to disperse them with substantial and violent force (link to a video of the police action below).  In an email about what would transpire, President Milagros Peña cites the "quiet hours" policy as justification for the use of force.  She also notes that fire alarms were set off and that this was disruptive for students who are entering the final weeks of class.  Students have noted that the quiet hour rule is not uniformly enforced. Students regularly congregate in the quad after 10pm without issue. During "Culture Shock," a music festival held on campus near the end of the year, this rule is also flouted.  Fire alarms were set off, but this happened only after the police moved in, and some students are claiming that it was a diversionary tactic meant to distract police and give room to students who wished to flee the violence that unfolded.  President Peña also suggests that "outside agitators" were somehow threatening the safety of the campus.  There was no evidence of immediate or even inchoate threat as the police moved in.  Also, at least some of those who were "outsiders" (a difficult word to parse in the context of a public college) were human rights lawyers invited by a faculty member to observe the protest. 

In all, 70 people were arrested.  In order to jail all of them, Police spread them across Westchester County.  If not for their friends, many of them, college students with few resources and parents who do not live locally, would have been stranded.   According to reports, many were not told the charge during the arrest and were also denied information about arresting officers.  Faculty who were present only to observe, support the students' right to free speech, and help de-escalate the situation were among those arrested.  One of these faculty, who has participated in other protests, noted the lack of training on the part of the officers involved in the arrests. He cited the fact that students were told to disperse but then given no clear means of egress.  Some were even pursued as they tried to leave.  He also noted that he has never witnessed such violence in response to protests.  The next morning, arrested students would find the belongings they were forced to leave behind, pillows, book bags, blankets, and other things, in and strewn around a dumpster.

Philosopher Nancy Fraser talks about cancellation of a lecture at the University of Cologne...

...because she signed the "Philosophers for Palestine" letter noted in the fall.   Academic freedom (more precisely, freedom in research and teaching) enjoys constitutional status in Germany, although I'm not sure if it encompasses decisions by academics to invite certain scholars to give lecture series (it would in the U.S.).  Of course, Germany has a very different free speech regime than the U.S. (all democracies do, by the way), one that includes prohibitions on certain kinds of hate speech and in which human dignity is the supreme constitutional value.  It seems to me dubious that that letter would run afoul of those limitations, but I am not expert on German constitutional law.

Following up on Emmanuel College's (Cambridge) violation of academic freedom rights

A propos this, the Times of London has published this letter today:

Sir,

We were dismayed to learn that Dr Nathan Cofnas, a researcher in Cambridge University’s Faculty of Philosophy and Research Associate at Emmanuel College, is to be expelled from the College and is the subject of investigations by the Faculty and the Leverhulme Trust on the ground that he made controversial comments about race and academic ability ("Cambridge in free-speech row over researcher’s ‘race realism’ blog”, Apr 19). 

The initial response of Cambridge University to this controversy seems to us to have been completely correct. Professor Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, issued a statement that began with the following passage: "Freedom of speech within the law is a right that sits at the heart of the University of Cambridge. We encourage our community to challenge ideas they disagree with and engage in rigorous debate.” Given this, we do not understand why the Philosophy Faculty is conducting an investigation. Members of the College or University who disagree with Dr Cofnas’s views could issue statements repudiating those views and explaining why they believe them to be mistaken.

We urge Emmanuel College to reverse its decision and the Philosophy Faculty and the Leverhulme Trust to call off their investigations. There is nothing here to investigate.

This should not need to be said, but given the current climate we would like to add that signing this letter does not indicate endorsement of Dr Cofnas’s views.

Yours faithfully,

Roger Crisp (Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Oxford)

Marie Daouda (Lecturer in French, Oriel College, University of Oxford)

Sir Partha Dasgupta FBA FRS (Frank Ramsey Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Cambridge)

Cornell chapter of Heterodox Society organizes a panel on academic witchhunts...

...featuring two victims well-known to readers of the blog, Kathleen Stock and Rebecca Tuvel (whose views on trans issues are quite different, as it happens, but both have felt the wrath of the Wokerati).  Now the Department of Philosophy at Cornell and several other departments have organized an event at the very same time as the Stock/Tuvel event, billed as a "celebration of transgender scholarship and life, to counter anti-trans speech on campus and abroad."  While this is better than trying to shutdown the Stock/Tuvel event, it certainly confirms the basic problem.  I'm sure all readers can guess at least one of the Cornell philosophers participating in the counter-event, a well-known opponent of academic freedom and free speech.

 

Barnard College votes "no confidence" in its President

Barnard is the all-female liberal arts college that is part of Columbia University (which did not admit women students until around 1983-84), whose President is Laura Rosenbury, a law professor and feminist legal theorist who taught at Washington University, St. Louis, before becoming Dean of the law school at the University of Florida Gainesville, and then President of Barnard.  Philosopher Frederick Neuhouser is quoted in the story about the vote of "no confidence":

“I hope this vote has the effect of instigating real change in the way Barnard is run and organized, including long-term changes, especially around the issue of shared governance, shared faculty governance,” Neuhouser said. “Because the events of this academic year have revealed really clearly to us something we really weren’t aware of before, namely, that faculty participation in governance at Barnard is really very small and we have very few powers compared to the faculty at Columbia, for example.”

Statement from philosophy graduate students and alumni at Columbia on recent events

Their statement and list of signatories follows:

Statement on Recent Events from Graduate Students and Alumni of the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University

We, current and former graduate students of the Department of Philosophy at Columbia University, are appalled at the decision taken on April 18th by the University President to violate principles of academic freedom and free speech by authorizing the forcible removal and arrest of 108 of our students and colleagues.

On April 18^th, the President of Columbia University, in the name of “safety,” brought armed police into our campus to use physical force against students who had established a non-violent encampment in support of Palestine on Columbia’s South Lawn. The encampment did not disrupt classes. It did not block access to campus or buildings. Nevertheless, the police were called in after only a day. The President took this action against the recommendation of the University Senate, violating principles of shared governance established in the wake of the 1968 protests. As a result of these arrests and suspensions, students have sustained injuries, lost access to Columbia health services, and been evicted from student housing with less than 15 minutes to gather their belongings.

This followed months of tensions at Columbia since the horrifying events of October 7^th and the devastating aftermath. These events have been the topic of difficult and traumatizing discussion. Columbia’s administration could have responded by promoting dialogue and mutual understanding. Instead, the administration heavily restricted speech on campus and  disproportionately acted to silence one voice in particular – the voice of those protesting against the ongoing oppression and killing of Palestinians. It was in this environment of institutional repression that the student protesters decided to take action.

Yale faculty letter in support of students arrested by police

Here.  Philosophy signatories include Stephen Darwall, Robin Dembroff, Lily Hu, Brad Inwood, Thomas Pogge, and Jason Stanley, among the names I spotted.  Based on what I know about what happened at Yale, I would have signed this letter as well were I there.

Campus protests and excessive police responses

What we are witnessing on various campuses--Columbia, NYU, UT Austin, Emory and others--is a predictable consequence of the campaign by the awful Congresswoman Foxx to terrorize universities into suppressing pro-Palestinian speech.  This video from Emory is representative:  an economics professor, concerned by the way the police are manhandling a student, tries to intervene, which police cannot tolerate, and she herself is then thrown to the ground (literally) and handcuffed.  Student encampments in open spaces may violate university rules, although as one report I received from UT Austin indicated, the student protesters were not disrupting classes at all, whereas the heavy-handed police intervention (what else would one expect from the authoritarian-minded Texas Governor Gregg Abbott?) created such a ruckus (including endless bullhorn announcements and orders) that classes were disrupted.   But if encampments violate content-neutral university rules, the correct response is through the university disciplinary process, not mass arrests by the police.   Only where protests actually interfere with university business--teaching and research--might a police response be warranted, but that has not been the case at Columbia or UT Austin, the two cases I've learned the most about.  Will some university leadership finally have the courage to stand up to the Republicans?  After all, what the students are protesting--the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the mass slaughter there--deserves protest, and goes to the alleged core of the First Amendment, namely, political speech.

(There has been some very bad behavior at Columbia, but not by students:  once the unnecessary police intervention last week turned Columbia into a media spectacle, area activists, many openly anti-semitic, descended on Columbia, but their antics have been confined to the streets outside the campus.   Many clueless folks on social media, who don't know the layout of the campus, are circulating videos which clearly show bad behavior by non-students on the streets outside the campus.)

ADDENDUM:  For those not on Twitter, you can see the full video of the police assault on the Emory economics professor here.

Statement by the Columbia Philosophy Department about recent events on their campus

Pretty sensible and seems quite right:

The Philosophy Department is concerned for the safety, academic progress, and rights of our students. We condemn all forms of hate speech, harassment, and incitements to violence. We also regard it as quite implausible that erecting a tent on a lawn constitutes a clear and present danger, and we urge the lifting of suspensions of students whose charges stem from that act. Thus we support the joint statement by the Columbia and Barnard Chapters of the American Association of University Professors and the letter from the Columbia College Student Council. We want President Shafik to succeed, and for mutual trust between all parties on campus to be regained. Such success and trust requires visible engagement by the President and Trustees with the procedures of faculty governance.

Cambridge University college (Emmanuel) dismisses philosophy Fellow because his views conflict with DEI (UPDATED)

MOVING TO FRONT FROM APRIL 23--UPDATED

Peter Singer describes what happened here, and a brief news item is here.  Emmanuel College has really disgraced itself; will Cambridge University follow suit?  (We've discussed Dr. Cofnas's views before.  His views do conflict with DEI, but any college that thinks that justifies rescinding an appointment has no commitment to academic freedom.)

UPDATE:  Philosopher Jeff McMahan writes:

In your post on April 23 about the expulsion of Nathan Cofnas from Emmanuel College, Cambridge, there is a link to a short piece by Peter Singer, in which he quotes from the letter Cofnas received informing him of his impending dismissal:

"The Committee first considered the meaning of the blog and concluded that it amounted to, or could reasonably be construed as amounting to, a rejection of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI and EDI) policies. … The Committee concluded that the core mission of the College was to achieve educational excellence and that diversity and inclusion were inseparable from that. The ideas promoted by the blog therefore represented a challenge to the College’s core values and mission."

It is worth noting one implication of the claim that the achievement of educational excellence is inseparable from policies of diversity and inclusion – namely, that there could not have been educational excellence anywhere until quite recently, when these policies were first introduced.

AAUP report on the (terrible) state of academic freedom in Florida public higher education

Here.  Governor Viktor DeSantis has done real and perhaps lasting damage.

(Thanks to Jason Stanley for the pointer.)

The Columbia University disaster

The administration has completely caved in to the Republican Congressional campaign to suppress pro-Palestinian speech on campus.  What an embarrassment. And this will spread until some university has the courage to stand up and say, "No."

(For more on Columbia, see this discussion by a Columbia law professor of some of the dubious decisions of the administration.)