On Tuesday, Harvard officials announced that the university would take a formal position of ideological neutrality on political events and other controversial issues. The decision comes after months of tumultuous protests on campus over the war between Israel and Hamas.
Earlier this month, a working group led by the faculty took place published a report that strongly recommends adopting a neutral attitude on topics that do not directly concern the university itself.
“The university has a responsibility to speak out to protect and advance its core function. Its leaders must communicate the value of the university’s central activities. They must defend the autonomy and academic freedom of the university when it is threatened,” the report said. “However, the university and its leaders may not make official statements on public matters that do not directly impact the core function of the university.”
The report alluded to what is likely the overriding reason behind Harvard’s commitment to neutrality – the enormous pressure school officials face to influence Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, and the ongoing war in Gaza. The report notes that if officials make statements on one issue unrelated to the university’s core function, the school opens itself up to demanding comment on any other controversy.
“As the university and its leaders become accustomed to making official statements on matters outside the university’s core function, they will inevitably come under intense pressure to do so from multiple, competing parties over almost every conceivable topic of the day,” the university said. report. “This is the reality of contemporary public life in an age of social media and political polarization.”
Questionnaire results released last week by The Harvard Crimson indicate broad support among the faculties for neutrality. The survey found that more than 70 percent of arts and sciences faculty supported a shift to formal neutrality and more than half reported feeling “somewhat negative” or “negative” about “the current state of academic freedom at Harvard.” .
The announcement was met with widespread praise from free speech advocates.
“For better or worse, what Harvard does, others follow,” said Angel Eduardo, senior writer and editor at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, wrote on Tuesday. “The principles outlined in the Institutional Voice Working Group report not only bode well for Harvard’s future in the areas of free speech and academic freedom – they could also signal significant change at universities in the entire country.”
Also on Wednesday is Syracuse University announced that it would adopt the recommendations of a similar working group and adopt an officially neutral position.
“We embrace the guiding principle that the remedy for speech that some find hurtful, insulting, or even hateful is not to disrupt, hinder, or suppress the freedom of speech of others, but rather more speech,” reads a statement from the university. . “Except under the most extraordinary circumstances and for the sole purpose of protecting its mission of discovery, improvement and dissemination of knowledge, the University makes no institutional statements or pronouncements regarding current controversies.”
The mail Harvard announces it will stop releasing political statements appeared first on Reason.com.
