The free speech wars are escalating at North Carolina’s flagship university.
At its January, meeting the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill board of trustees directed the university administration to “accelerate its development of a School of Civic Life and Leadership.” Not surprisingly, the mandate has led to objections from UNC faculty members asserting that it is their province to determine curriculum. The president of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges, Belle Wheelan, has weighed in suggesting that the university’s accreditation may be at risk if the trustees don’t rescind their directive.
Before engaging in a battle over the legitimate roles of the UNC board and the faculty, the trustees should be asking themselves whether the creation of a new school to promote freedom of expression will advance that meritorious objective. Or will an independent school create only a safe space for the open exchange of ideas while the rest of the university proceeds as usual?
The board’s proposed school comes on the heels of earlier measures to counter the suppression of speech and ideas found by some to be offensive or false. In July, after observing that “a healthy democracy not only tolerates dissent but welcomes it,” board members each voluntarily pledged “to treat all students, faculty, staff, and our entire university community with respect, dignity, courtesy, and generosity of spirit.” The board also adopted a resolution reaffirming “its commitment to academic freedom as embodied in the Chicago Principles and the Kalven Committee Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action.”
The University of Chicago issued the Chicago Principles in 2015, and several universities have adopted them in the face of efforts to suppress the free and open expression of ideas. The 1967 Kalven Report, also from the University of Chicago, committed the institution to neutrality on matters of public policy to encourage robust debate and avoid a chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas, which is essential to any university.
The UNC board’s continued attention to these issues is good news for those who envision universities as crucibles for the free exchange of ideas and the pursuit of truth. The board deserves plaudits for taking the lead in the face of the type of resistance that has led most university trustees and presidents to run for cover. But it is doubtful that a free-standing school of civic life and leadership will do much to affect the broader, deeply embedded university culture.
Although clearly not the trustees’ intent, a lesson students will learn from the creation of an independent program inspired by a commitment to free speech and the civil exchange of ideas is this: If you value unconstrained exchange of ideas, enroll in the school that allows for that. Otherwise, you can sign on with the established departments and accept whatever rules of inquiry and debate they declare.
The UNC board’s adoption of the Chicago Principles and the Kalven Report and its pledge to value differing opinions is noble and necessary. But as generations of academic trustees can attest, a university culture is not easily changed. Faculty members see themselves as independent actors, and administrators live in fear of faculty and student criticism. Unless trustees, presidents and deans impose serious consequences on those who suppress disfavored or controversial ideas, little will change. Unless agreeing to the Chicago Principles means that everyone at the university will abide by those principles, it is little more than posturing.
So two cheers for the UNC trustees. They have demonstrated a commitment to the values that make a university a university. But the creation of what likely will become a free speech enclave, a safe space for the free exchange of ideas, will only encourage the rest of the university to keep on keeping on.
The not inconsiderable resources required to support a new school of 20 faculty members would be better invested in a pervasive effort to build a university culture of free expression and the unrestrained exchange of ideas. Central to that effort would be replacement of the hundreds of administrators who promote and protect the existing culture with faculty members committed to the pursuit of truth.
The savings might just pay for the effort.
