Academic freedom is being voted on in the midterm elections, but you wouldn’t know it from the gags muzzling the voices of college presidents. Too many leaders have taken a vow of silence when it comes to addressing difficult issues in American life, even those that directly threaten the academy, our students, and faculty. The implications for the future of higher education and this nation are dire if we presidents fail to break out of our posture of self-censorship and take our rightful places in the bully pulpit.
In a recent Chronicle survey, an astonishing 80 percent of presidents responded saying they would self-censor their comments on national political issues “to avoid creating a controversy for themselves or their colleges.”
My fellow presidents! If we do not speak out about racial justice and political suppression of the truth about American history, or our right to teach “divisive concepts” as fundamental to the entire idea of a university, or the urgent need for immigration reform for our undocumented students, or the protection of voting rights as bedrock to a functional democracy — if we fail to speak out, how dare we robe ourselves in velvet and satin and march into our fall convocations to orate on the greatness of our institutions?
College leaders have significant obligations to the public good beyond the stewardship of our individual institutions. Higher education is the great counterweight to government in a free society, and we are responsible for raising up and defending the values we embody in the public square. We must not be intimidated by those who would silence us by denigrating fundamental moral values as mere “political issues.”
We should use our bully pulpits to teach the difference between political issues people can respectably disagree on and the foundational values that demand consensus to sustain a free society. We must be champions for civil and human rights, proclaiming the dignity and worth of all persons not only within the confines of our campus but in the larger society. We must insist on the freedom to speak, to teach, to enlarge knowledge through research and scholarship. We must demand truth as essential for governance in a good society.
Presidents must have the courage to confront the corruption of truth that spreads through politically expedient lies — whether the manipulation of language about slavery or the rejection of scientific truth about climate change, or the undermining of public-health protocols by mocking masks and vaccines, or the persistent denials of verified election results or the daily toxic stew of “fake news” that makes it difficult for citizens to understand the real threats to our democracy.
Higher education is the great counterweight to government in a free society, and we are responsible for raising up and defending the values we embody in the public square.
If all we presidents do is work to enlarge our endowments, win sports championships, and move up in the U.S. News rankings, we will have failed our ultimate stewardship obligation — to protect and enlarge the fundamental rights and freedoms that are the foundation of our society. The idea of the university is central to our nation’s ability to move closer to its ideals of freedom and justice through each generation. Democracy demands a well-educated population to ensure its continued vitality. Authoritarians say they “love the uneducated” and work in overdrive to disparage and diminish universities because education is kryptonite to tyranny.
Academe has assumed a symbolic importance it hasn’t had since the height of the Cold War.
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Popular reductionist rhetoric about higher education drives a wedge through the heart of our moral purpose. The rhetoric emanating from political and corporate sectors is that we should be more about jobs and less about ideas — that we need fewer great thinkers and more skilled technicians. PayScale cannot measure the worth of those who mount barricades to demand equity and justice; the College Scorecard ignores the ROI in the common good of our graduates who choose public service over private corporate gain. We are measured by metrics that fail to represent the real values of the academy. In our begrudging silence, we become compliant, even complicit, in the dumbing down of the purpose of higher education as merely utilitarian rather than a force to elevate society and educate true citizen leaders.
To their credit, some presidents are not so shy about public advocacy. After the Dobbs case overruled Roe v. Wade on abortion rights, the presidents of six historic women’s colleges spoke out in a letter in The New York Times, declaring, “We will continue to provide reproductive health care on our campuses.” Their public statement was unusual as most presidents remained silent or offered relatively tepid comments.
Other examples of genuine advocacy include the gratifying number of institutions signing on to amicus briefs supporting affirmative action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. And nearly 600 presidents have joined forces in the Presidents Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, which is doing tremendous advocacy for thousands of our undocumented students.
However, few presidents have spoken forcefully about the mounting threats to academic freedom in Florida, Texas, and other states. Do we really hate accreditation and tenure so much that we are willing to stand idly by while governors and state legislatures demolish these elements of a strong and free university? Do we think that banning library books is only a K-12 problem? At our peril, we ignore the increasing volume of reactive governors’ orders and bills in state houses on critical race theory, including those targeting K-12 education which are harbingers of the future of higher education. We will face even graver threats if the midterm elections move these issues from the states to Congress.
At our peril, we ignore the increasing volume of reactive governors’ orders and bills in state houses on critical race theory.
The greatest orator in the bully pulpit, Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, the late Notre Dame president, once said that we presidents cannot lead if we blow “an uncertain trumpet.” Father Hesburgh insisted that presidents should teach essential social and moral values, including “human rights, world poverty and hunger, good government, preserving the fragile ecosphere, strengthening marriage and family life.” Half a century later, these issues remain on the ballot.
Father Hesburgh’s words remind us that we presidents are not concierges. We are, first and foremost, teachers. If we do not teach our students how to speak publicly about some of the most difficult issues of this era, we are failing in our mission as educators. Some presidents explain their silence by saying that if they spoke out, they might be accused of chilling the speech of others. That’s a poor excuse. Leadership demands that we take the risk of criticism to raise up issues that must compel dialogue. If we spark debate, great! We should do no less than challenge others to follow our lead.
Let’s not concede the public forum to the voices that disparage and denounce our very existence. Let’s show them our true purpose as “certain trumpets” for the rights of all the people who depend on us for audacious leadership to ensure the ongoing vitality of our way of life in democracy and freedom.
