Lauren, as always thanks for thoughtful remarks especially given the fact that we have different starting points. I'm passing this on to my colleagues who are thinking about dong work on campuses. Understandably, they want to start with the polarization and the current crises. It would be a mistake for them to do so without taking your "prior" issues into account.
Thanks, Chip! As the saying goes, in order to be trusted we have to be trustworthy. I'm not sure higher ed is 100% trustworthy right now and until we are, I'm not sure we'll be able to avoid the partisan attacks we're seeing now. It's harder work than just declaring institutional neutrality and going on with business-as-usual. I'm not entirely sure where to start either. It's a bit of a wicked problem in that respect.
I'm extremely sympathetic to this, but I do think the call to depoliticize research and teaching will be heard by many faculty as an attack on the kind of work they do, and will meet with a lot of internal resistance. There are a lot of programs--many but not all of the ones with "studies" in the name--where my sense is that it's a core part of the self-conception of the programs that they are ineliminably political. The landing page for the ethnicity, race, and migration program at Yale (https://erm.yale.edu/) asks why one might study ethnicity, race, and migration, and answers: "we study the world in order to change it." (This is also a program that, way back in 2021, had an official department statement condemning Israel as a settler colonial state.)
I have a very easy time imagining what a depoliticized philosophy department might look like. (I don't think it would have to look *all* that different from the departments I already know.) What about a depoliticized women and gender studies department? I don't think it's an impossibility by any stretch of the imagination, but I also think it would look very very different from most actual departments and programs bearing that sort of label.
So while *I* like the idea of a depoliticized university, I can see why lots of scholars in heavily politicized programs and departments hear it as a threat, and since there are many such scholars, I expect it will face with a lot of internal resistance. I worry university presidents who try to do what you're asking will face no confidence votes. Don't get me wrong, I still want them to do it!
I think it's a bit easier than you might think. Easier at least in theory, but maybe not always in practice, given particular faculty cultures. In my own university, our women's and gender studies program is pretty overtly political, but I get the impression from working with those folks that they understand that the *university* refusing to take political positions actually keeps them safe.
Part of it is that we need to distinguish institutional neutrality from program or faculty neutrality. In fact, institutional neutrality has to be paired with academic freedom in order for it to be effective. By remaining neutral, the institution allows its faculty and staff to seek the truth, no matter where they find it. So there's an internal benefit to the university as well as the external benefit of avoiding putting a target on our backs. It would be crazy to insist that political science faculty, for example, not criticize governmental over-reach or remain fully neutral in the face of corruption.
The principled position is to remain neutral *as an institution* but vigorously defend faculty's freedom to speak out on whatever they would like, as long as they aren't speaking *for* the university. There are obviously lots of complicated lines, like faculty spouting racist stuff on Twitter/X, and those are the ones that give administrators nightmares. But by and large it's fairly easy to tell when faculty speech connects with and stems from their research.
Obviously not all faculty see it that way and at institutions that themselves came from activist roots or have a long tradition of activist faculty, institutional neutrality may not be possible. But I think they're shooting themselves in the foot, long term.
[Edited to add: I do wish many faculty and programs took viewpoint diversity more seriously in their teaching and research - it makes for better teaching and research and helps students become better thinkers and citizens. But that's a much harder fix, given how academia works. I'd be fine starting at the top on this one.]
Can institutional “neutrality” be separated from program or faculty level “politization” though? For example, is the tenure process “institutional” or “faculty”? Also, once people have power they like to wield it. So once you have a politicized faculty, sooner or later you’ll get a politicized institution, unless there’s some hard rails in place.
I think this is right. I'd like to make a pitch for a more thoughtful kind of faculty governance where faculty actually engage with the purpose of universities, who the wide range of stakeholders are (spoiler: it's not just faculty!), and what kinds of principles are consistent with that purpose and those diverse stakeholders. It will likely differ across institutions. I personally have no problem with small ideologically/religiously driven colleges as long as they're transparent with everyone that that's what they're doing. As you note, we're often *not* transparent at all about how ideological commitments infiltrate academic decision making.
In my view, for institutional neutrality to do the work it needs to do, it can't only apply to things like presidential statements and statements from deans. I think it also needs to apply at the department level. In fact, I think official department positions on political matters are probably *more* damaging to academic freedom than official university positions. If I'm coming up for tenure, what the president thinks of me doesn't matter much; presidents don't pay attention to or intervene in specific promotion cases. But what the senior faculty in my department think matters a great deal. So if there's an official department position on, e.g., Gaza, I'm probably going to think twice about contradicting it, at least before tenure.
But it's when institutional neutrality applies at the unit level that I think it's understandable that faculty in deeply politicized departments might reasonably wonder what it means for them.
On a slightly different note, if we continue to have a bunch of deeply politicized departments, even without official university political positions, do you think that goes far enough towards regaining public trust? People skeptical of higher ed can see that we have a bunch of departments that are pretty overtly left-political, but none that are at all overtly right-political. They can see that schools have gen ed requirements for, e.g., "engaging diveristy" (a requirement at Georgetown) but no gen ed requirements for right-coded values (patriotism?). I like ideas like the school of civic life and leadership at UNC, or the Hamilton center at UF as ways of addressing these concerns, but they're not that widespread, and they've already met with a lot of opposition.
What I'm trying to get at is that depoliticizing the university in a way that could actually earn trust with skeptics would likely require broad change.
I think you're right and I probably wrote too quickly earlier. I don't love ideological departments either (for reasons I mentioned above but also for the faculty perspective you mention here), but I'm not sure how to balance that against the need for academic freedom. And one (minor) benefit of politicized departments is that at least they're (usually) relatively easy to spot. When I was on the job market there were political theory jobs I just didn't bother applying to because I knew just from the job description that they were looking for an ideological fit, not a subject matter fit. The danger, as you indicate in your last paragraph, is departments will generally slide left over time unless they take an overtly neutral or even right-leaning position.
But the reality is that liberals dominate academia and it's hard to see how we bring in more intellectual diversity when many of my left-leaning colleagues don't even know alternate positions on certain topics exist. It's very hard to know which end to start with. I don't have any answers. I suppose we start with more honest conversations internally about what our values as universities should be.
Well written! I decided to see if weve been misled at all regarding the history of education in America and it appears that we have. It turns out that what we know as the the American Academe was actually constructed, mostly after WW2, through the consolidation and centralization of the Old Republic’s decentralized, diversified, pluralistic, and vibrant system of systems.
Lauren, as always thanks for thoughtful remarks especially given the fact that we have different starting points. I'm passing this on to my colleagues who are thinking about dong work on campuses. Understandably, they want to start with the polarization and the current crises. It would be a mistake for them to do so without taking your "prior" issues into account.
Thanks, Chip! As the saying goes, in order to be trusted we have to be trustworthy. I'm not sure higher ed is 100% trustworthy right now and until we are, I'm not sure we'll be able to avoid the partisan attacks we're seeing now. It's harder work than just declaring institutional neutrality and going on with business-as-usual. I'm not entirely sure where to start either. It's a bit of a wicked problem in that respect.
I'm extremely sympathetic to this, but I do think the call to depoliticize research and teaching will be heard by many faculty as an attack on the kind of work they do, and will meet with a lot of internal resistance. There are a lot of programs--many but not all of the ones with "studies" in the name--where my sense is that it's a core part of the self-conception of the programs that they are ineliminably political. The landing page for the ethnicity, race, and migration program at Yale (https://erm.yale.edu/) asks why one might study ethnicity, race, and migration, and answers: "we study the world in order to change it." (This is also a program that, way back in 2021, had an official department statement condemning Israel as a settler colonial state.)
I have a very easy time imagining what a depoliticized philosophy department might look like. (I don't think it would have to look *all* that different from the departments I already know.) What about a depoliticized women and gender studies department? I don't think it's an impossibility by any stretch of the imagination, but I also think it would look very very different from most actual departments and programs bearing that sort of label.
So while *I* like the idea of a depoliticized university, I can see why lots of scholars in heavily politicized programs and departments hear it as a threat, and since there are many such scholars, I expect it will face with a lot of internal resistance. I worry university presidents who try to do what you're asking will face no confidence votes. Don't get me wrong, I still want them to do it!
I think it's a bit easier than you might think. Easier at least in theory, but maybe not always in practice, given particular faculty cultures. In my own university, our women's and gender studies program is pretty overtly political, but I get the impression from working with those folks that they understand that the *university* refusing to take political positions actually keeps them safe.
Part of it is that we need to distinguish institutional neutrality from program or faculty neutrality. In fact, institutional neutrality has to be paired with academic freedom in order for it to be effective. By remaining neutral, the institution allows its faculty and staff to seek the truth, no matter where they find it. So there's an internal benefit to the university as well as the external benefit of avoiding putting a target on our backs. It would be crazy to insist that political science faculty, for example, not criticize governmental over-reach or remain fully neutral in the face of corruption.
The principled position is to remain neutral *as an institution* but vigorously defend faculty's freedom to speak out on whatever they would like, as long as they aren't speaking *for* the university. There are obviously lots of complicated lines, like faculty spouting racist stuff on Twitter/X, and those are the ones that give administrators nightmares. But by and large it's fairly easy to tell when faculty speech connects with and stems from their research.
Obviously not all faculty see it that way and at institutions that themselves came from activist roots or have a long tradition of activist faculty, institutional neutrality may not be possible. But I think they're shooting themselves in the foot, long term.
[Edited to add: I do wish many faculty and programs took viewpoint diversity more seriously in their teaching and research - it makes for better teaching and research and helps students become better thinkers and citizens. But that's a much harder fix, given how academia works. I'd be fine starting at the top on this one.]
Can institutional “neutrality” be separated from program or faculty level “politization” though? For example, is the tenure process “institutional” or “faculty”? Also, once people have power they like to wield it. So once you have a politicized faculty, sooner or later you’ll get a politicized institution, unless there’s some hard rails in place.
I think this is right. I'd like to make a pitch for a more thoughtful kind of faculty governance where faculty actually engage with the purpose of universities, who the wide range of stakeholders are (spoiler: it's not just faculty!), and what kinds of principles are consistent with that purpose and those diverse stakeholders. It will likely differ across institutions. I personally have no problem with small ideologically/religiously driven colleges as long as they're transparent with everyone that that's what they're doing. As you note, we're often *not* transparent at all about how ideological commitments infiltrate academic decision making.
In my view, for institutional neutrality to do the work it needs to do, it can't only apply to things like presidential statements and statements from deans. I think it also needs to apply at the department level. In fact, I think official department positions on political matters are probably *more* damaging to academic freedom than official university positions. If I'm coming up for tenure, what the president thinks of me doesn't matter much; presidents don't pay attention to or intervene in specific promotion cases. But what the senior faculty in my department think matters a great deal. So if there's an official department position on, e.g., Gaza, I'm probably going to think twice about contradicting it, at least before tenure.
But it's when institutional neutrality applies at the unit level that I think it's understandable that faculty in deeply politicized departments might reasonably wonder what it means for them.
On a slightly different note, if we continue to have a bunch of deeply politicized departments, even without official university political positions, do you think that goes far enough towards regaining public trust? People skeptical of higher ed can see that we have a bunch of departments that are pretty overtly left-political, but none that are at all overtly right-political. They can see that schools have gen ed requirements for, e.g., "engaging diveristy" (a requirement at Georgetown) but no gen ed requirements for right-coded values (patriotism?). I like ideas like the school of civic life and leadership at UNC, or the Hamilton center at UF as ways of addressing these concerns, but they're not that widespread, and they've already met with a lot of opposition.
What I'm trying to get at is that depoliticizing the university in a way that could actually earn trust with skeptics would likely require broad change.
I think you're right and I probably wrote too quickly earlier. I don't love ideological departments either (for reasons I mentioned above but also for the faculty perspective you mention here), but I'm not sure how to balance that against the need for academic freedom. And one (minor) benefit of politicized departments is that at least they're (usually) relatively easy to spot. When I was on the job market there were political theory jobs I just didn't bother applying to because I knew just from the job description that they were looking for an ideological fit, not a subject matter fit. The danger, as you indicate in your last paragraph, is departments will generally slide left over time unless they take an overtly neutral or even right-leaning position.
But the reality is that liberals dominate academia and it's hard to see how we bring in more intellectual diversity when many of my left-leaning colleagues don't even know alternate positions on certain topics exist. It's very hard to know which end to start with. I don't have any answers. I suppose we start with more honest conversations internally about what our values as universities should be.
Well written! I decided to see if weve been misled at all regarding the history of education in America and it appears that we have. It turns out that what we know as the the American Academe was actually constructed, mostly after WW2, through the consolidation and centralization of the Old Republic’s decentralized, diversified, pluralistic, and vibrant system of systems.