A Harvard Dean's Assault On Faculty Speech

Chronicle of Higher Education Op-Ed:  A Harvard Dean's Assault on Faculty Speech, by Keith Whittington (Princeton):

It is not surprising for a boss to think that employees should avoid saying things in public that might damage the organization for which they both work. It is not even surprising for the boss to understand “damage” to include making the boss’s own life more difficult.

But college faculty members have fought very hard, for a very long time, to be protected from such attitudes. They have established that, unlike employees at most organizations, they have the right to publicly criticize their employer and their administration. So it is notable when an especially prominent administrator publicly announces that faculty speech rights should be rolled back a century or so. That is what Lawrence D. Bobo, dean of social science and a professor of social sciences at Harvard University, did last week in an opinion essay published in The Harvard Crimson with the ominous title, “Faculty Speech Must Have Limits.”

Members of the faculty, Bobo argued, have the right to debate “key policy matters” in “internal discussion,” but they should be careful that their dissent not reach outside ears:

A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs. Along with freedom of expression and the protection of tenure comes a responsibility to exercise good professional judgment and to refrain from conscious action that would seriously harm the university and its independence.

Such public criticisms, Bobo says, “cross a line into sanctionable violations of professional conduct.” If a group of faculty members, for example, decides that a dean’s policies are inimical to their institution’s core mission, and if they take their criticism to the press, then — according to Bobo — they should be properly disciplined.

Bobo’s views were conventional wisdom among university officials and trustees in 1900. They are shocking in 2024. Shocking, but unfortunately no longer surprising. The Harvard dean’s arguments resonate with a growing movement of those who wish to muzzle the faculty. Professors are to be free to speak, so long as they do not say anything that might disturb the powers that be. Those in power may not want the faculty to march to the same tune, but they do all like giving the faculty their marching orders and expecting them not to step out of line.

The Atlantic Op-Ed:  An Attack on Free Speech at Harvard, by Jeffrey Flier (Former Dean, Harvard Medical School):

His essay reflects a poor appreciation of the norms and values that academic freedom was developed to protect. As the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard—a faculty group of which I am co-president—has written, “A university must ensure that the work of its scholars receives robust, informed, and impartial appraisal that applies the best truth-seeking standards appropriate to their discipline—without pressure to bow to the opinions of the state, a corporation, a university administrator, or those (including students) who express feelings of outrage or harm about ideas they dislike.” Further, members of the academic community “should be free from reprisal for positions they defend, questions they ask, or ideas they entertain.” Stated another way, universities require a culture of open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement. ...

Bobo’s essay is a reminder that there is much work still to be done, and that the price of academic freedom is eternal vigilance.

Jonathan H. Adler (Case Western), A Frightening View of Free Speech and Academic Freedom at Harvard:

Regrettably, this is not the first time I have heard university administrators suggest that speech by faculty or other members of the university community should be curtailed if it might generate controversy, provoke a response, or otherwise reflect poorly on the university. (I can also say, from personal experience, that if my university had ever adopted such a position, I would have been among those in the crosshairs.) That there are university administrators—let alone prominent professors such as Dean Bobo—who do not recognize the profound threat such a position poses to academic freedom and the truth-seeking function of a university is both sobering and depressing.

Jonathan Turley (George Washington; Google Scholar), No “Blank Check”: Dean Warns that Criticizing the School or its Leadership is Not Protected at Harvard:

Dean Bobo is now the latest academic to embrace the theater rationale to justify the silencing of dissent. At Harvard, he is suggesting that the entire university is now a crowded theater and criticizing the university leadership is a cry of “Fire.” It is that easy.

By punishing criticism of the school’s leadership and policies, Bobo believes that they can look “forward to calmer times” on campus. It is precisely the type of artificial silence that academics have been enforcing against conservatives, libertarians, and dissenters for years. It is the approach that reduced our schools to an academic echo chamber. ...

Bobo’s arguments are consistent with years of rationales for silencing or investigating dissenting faculty for years. It violates the very foundation for academia in free speech and academic freedom. The university is free to punish students or faculty for unlawful conduct. However, when it comes to their viewpoints, there should be a bright line of protection.

Austin Sarat (Amherst College), Should Faculty Be Punished for Publicly Criticizing the Institutions Where They Teach?:

The Boston Globe reported that “The backlash [to Bobo’s op ed] has been swift, and it has united, at least for the moment, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian faculty members.”

As former Harvard President Lawrence Summers posted on X, “It takes something extraordinary to bring me into agreement with Israel demonizing faculty like Walter Johnson. That is what Harvard Dean Lawrence Bobo has done with his call for punishing faculty who publicly challenge university decisions.”

“I cannot understand,” Summers continued, “how someone…who believes in punishing dissent can be allowed to set faculty salaries, decide on promotions or be involved in faculty discipline. How can it be according to Harvard leaders that it is fine to call for an end to Israel as a Jewish state but not to criticize the University administration?”

The Globe quoted another Harvard professor who said, “The suggestion that members of an institution should be punished for criticizing that institution represents an authoritarian mindset, with no place in a university.” ...

[A]s Zach Greenberg, from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression observes, faculty are often the best positioned to criticize their universities because they see, and reckon with, the institutions’ flaws up close. Penalizing speech intended to “incite external actors” and critics of universities, as Bobo suggests, could create a chilling effect because faculty “might be unable to predict the public response to their statements.”

In the end, I say, loyalty, yes. Silence, no.

Wall Street Journal Editorial, Harvard’s Dean of Speech Sanctions:

Harvard has some slow learners, especially in the dean’s office. Lawrence Bobo, the dean of social science, kicked up a storm this week when he wrote in the Harvard Crimson that faculty members who criticize Harvard or its policies should be subject to university punishment. ...

As an institutional matter, Mr. Bobo’s position as a Harvard dean is especially problematic. Harvard President Emeritus Larry Summers notes that the call to censure faculty members’ comments on university affairs is “an obvious intrusion on academic freedom” and worse because of his position. Mr. Bobo “has authority over salaries, setting promotions and resource allocations,” Mr. Summers notes, and until his views are repudiated by university leadership, “academic freedom at Harvard will be in jeopardy.” ...

Mr. Bobo’s broadside is a reminder that censors haven’t vanished from the top rungs of America’s supposedly elite universities.

The Review, A Harvard Dean Attacks Academic Freedom:

Bobo’s essay is notable for how it differs from other recent calls for the partial abrogation of academic freedom. Those calls have taken two tacks. The first seeks to disqualify some speech on grounds that it is motivated by bigotry rather than — and in contradiction of — genuine expertise. That is the argument that Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth made in It’s Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom (Hopkins, 2022). The second seeks to limit academic freedom when its exercise is thought to interfere with the ability of all students to participate in an educational community. That is the argument made by the Hamline University administrators who punished an adjunct professor of art history for showing a medieval devotional image of Muhammad, an action Hamline’s associate vice president for inclusive excellence called “undeniably inconsiderate, disrespectful, and Islamophobic.” In theory, the two rationales for limiting academic freedom are entirely distinct; in practice, they are often invoked together.

Bobo’s ideas have nothing to do with these. He has in mind the damage wrought by “the appallingly rough manner in which prominent affiliates, including one former university president” — he means Larry Summers — have “publicly denounced Harvard’s students and present leadership.” His motivation is institutionalist; he wants to protect Harvard from negative outside attention. “A faculty member’s right to free speech,” he writes, “does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs.” ...

Bobo’s essay has elicited near-unanimous condemnation from scholars across the political and ideological spectrum — including those most committed to and those most skeptical of pro-Palestinian protest encampments. Perhaps this was his plan all along: to heal dissensus by drawing all ire to himself alone.

• Samuel Abrams (American Enterprise Institute) & Steven McGuire (American Council of Trustees and Alumni), Harvard’s ‘Abysmal’ Year Continues
• Harvard Crimson, Harvard Faculty Slam Social Science Dean’s Proposal to Limit Faculty Speech
• Joseph Knippenberg (Oglethorpe University), Harvard Dean Bobo’s Appeal to Institutional Loyalty Falls Short