Take It From a Former Activist: Universities Need to be Neutral

In 1960, during my freshman year at McGill University, I experienced firsthand the influence wielded by university administrators. It taught me why universities — Harvard included — need to adopt a posture of institutional neutrality.

Four years prior to Mario Savio’s Berkeley Free Speech movement, I engaged in activism — and faced suppression — for protest on my campus.

The catalyst for my activism was the tragic event in March 1960 in Sharpeville, South Africa, where oppressive anti-Black “pass laws” sparked a riot that resulted in the deaths of over 60 people at the hands of local authorities.

Powerless in the face of brutality but driven by a sense of righteousness, I organized a rally to express solidarity with the oppressed. To spread the word of the rally, I hung hand-written posters around the campus and created a boxed announcement in the McGill Daily newspaper, for which I was a student staff member.

Overnight, the posters were torn down, shredded, and discarded in garbage cans, the announcement in the McGill Daily mysteriously vanished, and the megaphone I’d reserved somehow became unavailable. Undeterred, I addressed a handful of students on the steps of Redpath Hall.

Later on I was told that university administration suppressed the ad, sending a clear signal that attempts to challenge the status quo in South Africa would not be tolerated. The fear instilled in me that day remains with me.

Seven years later, amid the turbulence of the 1960s — a decade marked by egregious political assassinations, social upheaval and the Vietnam War — the University of Chicago released the Kalven report, which called for university administrations to maintain neutrality in the face of political and social activism to nurture an environment conducive to open inquiry by faculty and students.

According to the report, while the university should serve as a platform for individual expression and dissent, it must remain impartial, refrain from taking collective action or endorsing specific political or social agendas, and welcome diverse viewpoints within its community.

The underlying theme is that the university enables individuals to seek the truth in a refuge, without the guardian eye of leadership or administrators controlling, influencing, or proclaiming orthodoxy.

The report endorsed university action in two extraordinary instances: to defend against threats to its mission and of free inquiry, and to engage in corporate action that must comport with paramount social, political or moral values (for example, by ensuring non-discrimination in the workplace).

What are the costs of institutional orthodoxy? Few institutions have embraced the principles outlined in the Kalven report, seemingly for having failed to rigorously scrutinize the repercussions of adhering to social and political orthodoxy.

Harvard University leadership has engaged in political discourse, for example, by congratulating a Democratic president on his election or commenting on the election of a Republican president as “the most divisive and contentious election any of us have ever known” and “what for many is a challenging and uncertain time.”

Not surprisingly and in contrast to the even split among the nation’s voters, more than 75 percent of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences self-report that they are liberal or very liberal. Worse, only a quarter of faculty were in support of increasing ideological diversity among faculty by hiring more conservative-leaning professors.

A University faculty that is homogeneously liberal fails to fully grasp how this non-neutral posture can suppress speech.

Excessively harsh responses to faculty with exemplary scholarship (e.g., Carole K. Hooven and professor Roland G. Fryer Jr.) who ran afoul of current social norms further display Harvard’s departure from neutrality.

Meanwhile, who dares to protest those who seek to erase history by removing portraits of giant thinkers in a scholarly field because they are white males or hold views we now view as unacceptable?

At the heart of reluctance to embrace institutional neutrality is the belief that there is a “right side of history,” a “true north” on the moral, social, or political compass. When administrators or faculty collectively take a stand or vocalize their beliefs to represent the entire university, these beliefs permeate every aspect of the academic realm.

This belief misses, however, that societal norms are dynamic and susceptible to transformation. The norms prevalent today may be obsolete and discarded tomorrow. Slavery was once commonplace, globally; now, it has been abolished in all Western societies.

Ideological conformity hinders the advance of knowledge, disables the academy to defend its premises, and undermines the university’s credibility as a repository of scholarship, evidence, and truth.

It is an easy matter to recommend that university administrators adopt the Kalven report’s recommendations to refrain from publicly stating support of specific social and political positions.

Neutrality on issues such as the Supreme Court ruling on Harvard’s admission policies present an added layer of complexity. The decision runs counter to current perceived benefits of racial and ethnic diversity. The Kalven report exceptions may apply in this case.

Equally daunting for administrative neutrality has been the events and aftermath of Oct. 7. When civil discourse rife with slogans crosses the boundaries into bullying, harassment, rage, calls for genocide, or classroom chaos, university neutrality can arguably be breached to safeguard the University’s mission and the well-being of its community.

By upholding the principles outlined in the Kalven report and remaining neutral in matters of political and social contention, universities can serve as beacons of intellectual discourse and champions of diversity of thought. Yet, the Kalven report also acknowledges circumstances where neutrality must be set aside to uphold the fundamental principles of a university.

Embracing the Kalven report can effectively sever the administration’s subtle yet influential grip on campus discourse and perspectives, while also affirming its authority to take decisive action when the University's core principles or survival are challenged.

Bertha K. Madras is a Professor of Psychobiology at Harvard Medical School.

Her piece is part of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard’s column, which runs bi-weekly on Mondays and pairs faculty members to write contrasting perspectives on a single theme. Read the companion to Madras’ piece here.