Red, Yellow, or Green? A University System Color-Codes Its Presidents’ Political Speech to Try to Regulate It

Photo illustration by Ron Coddington

If you’re the president of a public university in Maine, your comments now fall into one of three color-coded categories: red, yellow, or green.

Public statements about curriculum, student safety, or your institution’s finances fall in the green zone, which means you can express them freely without checking in with anyone.

Anything that is not related to the university’s mission or financial stability falls into the red zone. Avoid those topics.

Issues that indirectly impact the university are in the yellow zone. A president who wants to talk about those borderline topics should first check with the University of Maine system’s central office and possibly consult with a six-person committee of trustees, other presidents, and senior staff.

The categorizations are part of a new policy on political speech that the University of Maine system trustees, who oversee the state’s seven public universities, passed last month. The policy doesn’t just apply to university presidents: All faculty, staff, and students are subject to some portions that are meant to make it clear that only the presidents and system chancellor speak on behalf of the institution. While the policy says it “does not restrict any UMS faculty, staff, or student from speaking on political matters,” it specifies that if employees want to get involved in partisan political activity, they must do so on their own time and cannot use university resources.

University administrators say that for the most part, the new measure codifies and clarifies practices that were already in effect. It’s meant to be read in conjunction with another new policy, drawn from a University of Chicago report and passed last year, that affirmed the Maine’s universities’ commitment to freedom of speech.

The latest policy has gotten a mixed reception on campuses. Some faculty members, like James P. McClymer, an associate professor of physics at the University of Maine at Orono and president of the faculty union, said the policy that passed is an improvement over earlier drafts and has prompted productive conversations between administrators and faculty groups. Others worry that it actually poses a threat to their right to free speech.

“There’s some feeling that this is a first step in silencing faculty,” said Flynn Ross, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern Maine. “You create these barriers and the climate of fear so that faculty reconsider before speaking publicly.”

Tensions and Distrust

The idea to write a new policy up came after the 2016 election when tensions were high on campuses across the country, including in Maine, according to James Thelen, the university system’s general counsel. The Board of Trustees formed a committee to examine its policies on politics and freedom of speech, which were fairly minimal, he said.

Almost a year and a half later, the result is two new policies meant to be read together, a standing rapid-response advisory committee that will review the “reasonableness” of administrators’ statements, promises to create an interpretation guide, and plans for more meetings. Some faculty, already distrustful of the outspoken Republican governor, Paul LePage, and the trustees he appointed, worry that it’s too restrictive.

“This is unnecessary,” said David W. Townsend, an oceanography professor at the University of Maine at Orono. He thought the original policy on freedom of speech was fine; it was simple and straightforward.

Neil Gross, a sociology professor at Colby College who has written about professors and politics, said that academics tend to be progressive and are at the forefront of efforts to push back against far-right policies.

“Conservatives of an authoritarian cast have been trying to hobble that,” Gross said. “I see this as along the same lines, although not a strong move in that direction.”

According to Thelen, administrators and trustees “wanted to figure out how to address the difference between individuals’ right to speak and institutions’ impartiality.” He said the only clarity university employees previously had on what they could and could not say about politics was one sentence in an administrative manual forbidding the use of university resources for political purposes.

“We thought, All right, we’ve got to explain what that means,” Thelen said. “What can people do? What shouldn’t people do? What can our institutions and employees do?”

He said the intent of the resulting three-page document is to spell out what was already understood to be true: Faculty, staff, and students don’t speak for their universities, and universities don’t take positions on elections and certain other political topics. The only new piece is the color-coded speech zones that apply to presidents and the chancellor, he said.

Room for Interpretation

Employees of the university can still testify before legislators about their areas of expertise but they must “not represent that they speak for their campus or the system unless specifically authorized to do so,” the policy says. Thelen said that in an ideal world professors who testify before the Legislature or write opinion pieces would include a disclaimer saying that they don’t represent their university.

So can an art professor talk about politics in class? Can a political-science professor wear a pin supporting a preferred candidate? What exactly can scientists say about legislation related to climate change?

Thelen said he hopes to answer those questions soon. He’s planning to work with faculty representatives to create an interpretation guide to accompany the political-speech policy.

Some faculty members also raised questions about the restrictions placed on presidents and the chancellor. They took issue with the designations of what speech is considered political and what is considered critical to the university’s mission.

“During the travel ban, during Charlottesville, the presidents didn’t say anything,” said Townsend. “They waited for the chancellor to tell them what to say, which was sort of strange.”

Those events took place before the political-speech policy was passed in Maine, but other issues that presidents feel compelled to weigh in on are going to crop up. Climate change, for example, falls in the yellow zone under the policy. The University of Maine is known for its work studying the issue through its Climate Change Institute and research on wind energy. Under the policy, there are limits to what the institution can say about the topic.

“We can celebrate that research,” Thelen said. “But there’s a step too far where a president tries to lobby the Legislature to change the law. We’re not lobbyists.”

Though he’s generally not concerned by the new policy, McClymer said he is wary about the idea that universities won’t take a position on certain topics.

“There are things that have become political that shouldn’t be, like climate change,” McClymer said. “We hope that we will have public intellectuals, that the universities will take a stance on things.”

Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.