CampusFreeSpeach |
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Created: 2024-01-05
One explanation might be that, as Geoff Shullenberger has argued in The Chronicle, "the campus free-speech wars have only ever been secondarily about speech. Instead, they were primarily about the paternalistic role universities have arrogated for themselves as protectors of vulnerable groups." When two groups -- Jews and Palestinians, in this case -- have competing claims to vulnerability, college leaders choke. The sprawling apparatus of therapeutic care they have erected over the last decade requires them to approve their students' concerns, including political concerns, and to affirm their identities, especially when those identities have claims to marginalization. But when asked to take a stand between groups, the administrators faced a crisis.
Neutrality
What will they do now? One possibility: Commit to the institutional neutrality enshrined in the University of Chicago's 1967 Kalven Report, which calls for "a heavy presumption against the university taking collective action or expressing opinions on the political or social issues of the day." No more statements from college presidents scolding the Supreme Court; no more declarations of solidarity with Ukraine