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President Michael Schill announced the creation of the President's Advisory Committee on Free Expression and Institutional Speech on Feb. 19, 2024, to propose a statement on free expression that reflects ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø's values. The Committee brought together a panel of preeminent scholars from across disciplines to address three primary issues:

• What are the boundaries, if any, for free expression and academic freedom in teaching, research and public discourse?
• Under what circumstances, if any, should the University, its officers, academic departments or administrative units make statements on behalf of their constituents about political, social or international matters.
• How can the ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø community embrace the committee's recommendations as part of our culture?

The committee read an extensive set of materials and conducted listening sessions with key stakeholder groups, including representatives from Student Affairs, the Associated Student Government, graduate student leadership, the Office of General Counsel, the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX Compliance, and the Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, in addition to meeting with the Council of Deans, the Faculty Senate, the leadership of the Block Museum, Provost Kathleen Hagerty, and the Executive Committee of the Board of Trustees. They also met together, as a committee of the whole or in committee subgroups, for well over 20 hours of discussion.

The work of the committee came to a close with the submission of a Statement on Free Expression and Institutional Speech to President Schill on Aug. 9, 2024.

President Schill shared a preview of the statement with all faculty on Sept. 18, 2024, and encouraged their feedback. On Sept. 27, 2024, President Schill and Provost Hagerty officially endorsed the statement in a message to all faculty, students and staff.

Committee Members

• (chair), Professor of Law
• , President Emeritus
• , Professor of Social Psychology
• , Daniel L. Linzer Distinguished University Professor and Director of CIERA
• , Professor and former Dean, Bienen School of Music
• , Lawrence B. Dumas Professor of the Arts and Humanities
• , Henry Wade Rogers Professor of Biomedical Engineering
• , Professor of Journalism
• , Board of Trustees Professor of English
• , Robert E. and Emily King Professor in Economics
• , Professor and Jaharis Family Foundation Chair in Performance Studies

Statement on Free Expression and Institutional Speech

The President's Advisory Committee on Free Expression and Institutional Speech delivered the following statement to President Michael Schill on Aug. 9, 2024. View a pdf of the committee's cover note to the president.

Universities exist to pursue knowledge in the service of truth. This pursuit depends both on the freedom to challenge orthodoxy and on the opportunity to develop perspectives grounded in evidence and shaped by the give and take of intellectual engagement.

A spirit of inquiry animates the work of the university. Through restless, robust questioning of the status quo, addressing present-day problems and historic wrongs, our University community strives to deliver insight and invention. Whether in concert with prevailing wisdom or in defiance of it, ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø faculty and students have wide-ranging liberty to pursue their scholarly, pedagogical, intellectual, and artistic activities. ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø's motto, "whatsoever things are true," reminds us to persevere in our mission.

At ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø, our aspirations for intellectual engagement are rooted in our commitment to dialogue. Over fifty years ago, the influential Faculty Planning Committee's Community of Scholars report identified among its priorities developing "the complex of qualities that characterize the educated [person] as a social being." Social beings operate in community with one another. In dialogue, participants listen as well as speak, allow—as far as possible—the good faith of others' arguments, and remain open to the possibility of persuasion. Even if unmoved in their views, they will be better able to defend them after the crucible of debate. It is through inclusive engagement across difference, where arguments encounter counterarguments, that learning happens.

Dialogue is not domination or denigration. Shutting down or shouting down a speaker with whom one disagrees not only demonstrates a refusal to listen but also prevents others from doing so. Speech that impedes or is intended to prevent others' participation hinders the vitality of our intellectual community. In this light, free speech is necessary—but not sufficient—to meet the University's core purpose: We must cultivate the modes of speech and listening that promote productive dialogue. ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø cannot condone speech that threatens, harasses, or defames other individuals, or hinders the rights of others to learn.

We recommend that the University regularly review its policies with respect to students, faculty, and staff to ensure their consistency with our commitment to free expression and open dialogue. All policies should reaffirm ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø's deep commitment to academic freedom while more clearly articulating University responsibilities against harassment, intimidation, and discrimination to ensure a high-quality pedagogical experience. ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø has the right and duty to specify limits and boundaries of free expression with respect to time, place, and manner, and we note that the University can and should stipulate that violations of its policies entail consequences.

The responsibility to maximize inclusive dialogue carries through to the leadership of the University itself. The threat of coercion exists when any member of our faculty, staff, or administration presumes to speak for other members of our community through the issuing of collective statements. All members of our community may choose to speak publicly on controversial topics and to identify themselves as a member of our community, consistent with our policies and terms of employment. They should not do so, however, as official representatives of ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø or its constituent parts (e.g., as President, Provost, Vice-President, Dean, department chair, unit director, or center director). The exception to this rule covers matters that directly affect University operations. But even such statements should be rare: ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø must take pains to avoid coercing dissenting community members into silence.

By limiting University statements, we do not endorse a simplistic vision of "university neutrality." The very reason for this limitation is our firm commitment to values about which we are not neutral: fostering open and equitable dialogue and advancing the university's core mission—the pursuit of knowledge in the service of truth.