Institutional neutrality can’t be used to turn students into puppets

At a moment of political turmoil in American history, rife with violence, mass protest, and division, one university chose neutrality.

In 1967, when the president of the University of Chicago convened a faculty committee to deliberate on how the university should approach social and political issues, American higher education faced a pivotal moment. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement had changed the face of campus activism just three years prior. American society was rocked by protests against the Vietnam War and racial segregation.

That the committee emerged from deliberations with the Kalven Report, which recommended that colleges and universities stay neutral on major social and political issues, was a testament to the committee’s understanding of the purpose of the university to advance knowledge and truth-seeking.

The Kalven Report, named for the chair of the committee Harry Kalven Jr., articulated the role of faculty and students as instruments of “dissent and criticism,” and the university’s role as the “home and sponsor of critics.” Importantly, the report noted that the university “is not itself the critic,” and added that the spirit of independence and neutrality mean the university “must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.”

FIRE has previously argued for colleges and universities to adopt institutional neutrality, both as a boon for the campus climate and as an insurance policy for the university. By declaring itself neutral on major political and social issues, a university ensures that it does not chill potential dissenters on campus by constantly taking official positions on unresolved topics. And it is worth noting that the Kalven Report makes a significant exception for threats to the “very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry.” There, a university may feel obligated to speak out on issues related to university governance.

But recently, two public universities demonstrated that they misunderstand what institutional neutrality entails. They used the principle to restrict student speech under the guise of protecting university neutrality. 

At the University of Texas at Austin, a Graduate Student Assembly representative introduced two resolutions opposing implementation of a Texas law eliminating university DEI programs and initiatives. The GSA prepared to bring the resolutions to the floor for consideration.

But an administrator intervened on the grounds that the resolution constituted “political speech that is not permitted to be issued by a sponsored student organization in their official capacity.” This move directly contravened the GSA’s stated purpose to “serve as a voice for graduate students on matters of academics, student welfare, and campus policy.”

FIRE and the ACLU of Texas wrote to UT Austin to explain why the university’s restrictions on the GSA are not required by the university’s adoption of institutional neutrality.

When a student government merely expresses an opinion about a policy that has significant impact on campus, it is engaging in expressive activity protected by the same First Amendment principles that safeguard the speech of individual students. 

Institutional neutrality restrains an institution from adopting official positions on major issues. While there are open questions about how far within a university institutional neutrality must extend, neutrality certainly does not require — and indeed, is at odds with — a university restricting the speech of student bodies. This is an especially important distinction to make, given the fact that student associations and governments are supposed to serve, in part, as voices for the student body.

There are certain circumstances where student governments do exercise powers delegated by their universities, and so must abide by the same constitutional and legal obligations that bind the university itself. Student group funding, for example, is one area where student governments are required to be viewpoint-neutral, and FIRE has urged universities to intervene when student governments violate that obligation.

But when a student government merely expresses an opinion about a policy that has significant impact on campus, it is engaging in expressive activity protected by the same First Amendment principles that safeguard the speech of individual students. Unduly restricting it violates students’ rights and the spirit of institutional neutrality, which is intended to allow the university to house exactly this kind of discourse and debate.

UT Austin is not alone. This past summer, Purdue, just one year after adopting institutional neutrality, ordered an independent student publication to stop using “Purdue” in the publication’s URL and said it would end facilitating the publication’s free circulation on campus.

The university did so because the publication is a private entity, and the university feared, in light of its stance on institutional neutrality, that the publication’s speech would be associated with the university. But this order made clear that Purdue misunderstood institutional neutrality. The university was incorrect that allowing a clearly independent student publication to use Purdue’s name in its URL was somehow a violation of institutional neutrality. 

This was simply an attempt to censor student speech by removing long-standing informal arrangements the paper had with the university — an entirely unnecessary decision that could chill expression on campus. A reasonable person would not assume that an independent student publication or student organization is speaking on behalf of a university. This is especially so when one considers how many disparate university organizations use a university’s name or receive university funding.  

Punishing student or faculty speech in the name of maintaining institutional neutrality turns the entire concept on its head. 

Indeed, the wisdom of institutional neutrality is that it allows universities to foster the widest possible ranges of voices and perspectives on campus. It is not about protecting universities from being associated with views they dislike. Rather, universities can create environments where their community members feel free to take unpopular positions and debate difficult ideas without feeling that their university is putting its thumb on the scale in one direction or another. 

Institutional neutrality does not mean penalizing student publications for their viewpoints, just as it does not justify muzzling student governments. Punishing student or faculty speech in the name of maintaining institutional neutrality turns the entire concept on its head. 

Nearly 40 institutions, including university systems, have adopted institutional neutrality, and FIRE will continue to urge other universities to follow suit. But institutional neutrality must not be misunderstood as obligating a university to restrict the speech of student governments or publications. We urge UT Austin, Purdue, and other neutral institutions to refrain from using neutrality as an excuse to censor student speech.