Response to Chronicle of Higher Education

RE: Bradford Vivian’s  “Institutional Neutrality Is Censorship by Another Name”

February 15,  2025

Dear Chronicle of Higher Education,

Professor Vivian’s critique of institutional neutrality avoids the fundamental distinction between the academy seeking transformative change within itself (meaning what a university does, whom it serves and how it does so)  and the the academy seeking direct change to society and the political, cultural and social contexts in which a university is situated.  This is a distinction between an activism that focuses on challenging, changing, and improving the academy itself and its primary missions of teaching, producing research and creative work versus an activism that is focused on directly challenging, changing, and improving the broad political, cultural, and social context in which the academy is situated. Vivian and his colleagues  -who all to quickly are willing to ignore the failures within our own campuses while arguing that they are an appropriate site for critiques of Israel - might be served by rereading Edmond Husserl who reminds us that

“Philosophers, as things now stand, are all too fond of offering criticism from on high instead of studying and understanding things from within.”

Most of Professor Vivian’s cited examples of universities engaged in activism are in fact examples of a university taking a position on matters ”within”;  which is to say, matters having to do with teaching, research, creative activity and service.  To be sure, these  matters affect the cultural, political and social context in which our universities are situated .  Ezra but they are all examples of a university thinking about, critiquing and directly acting upon ITSELF.  Cornell’s radical promise to offer an education to a diverse population involved a thoughtful exercise in constructing ITSELF as a form of resistance.   Oberlin’s decision in the 1830’s was likewise a decision concerning ITSELF and what It’s mission was. The University of South Carolina’s 1873 innovative conception of ITSELF as “the common property of all our citizens without distinction of race” is again an auto-biographical statement about ITSELF. To be sure,  each of these exercises in reimagining what a university is and could be had huge cultural, political and social ramifications.  Each example of institutional self-reflection changed the societies that they operated in.  But each made those changes through self-referential thought and action.   However, Professor Vivian seems blind to the fundamental difference between on the one hand when a university makes statements, takes action about the culture “within” the academy, and on the other hand, when a university presumptuously seeks as an institution to become an actor in directly changing society.  The former changes society indirectly, the latter is an attempt at a shortcut.     The Kalven Report of 1967 clearly argued that a university should be actively engaged in taking strong ethically driven positions about its own mission and its values of free inquiry.  It argued that what universities do in society (teaching research, creative work) are the primary mechanisms – self-reflective existential work - that can and should affect societal change – but it is slow and subtle work. It is change through indirect means.   This is how - according to The Kalven Report - universities transform society.    It is the self-reflective work of the academy not the work of an activist.  It is fundamentally opposite to what Professor Vivian argues a university should do, which is to challenge society through direct activism.  Universities are not designed to do this well and when they have tried, it inevitably and irrevocably disrupts the primary mission and duties of the academy.  In short, activism has never been what the academy does well.  In contrast, we have at times been reasonably good at our primary mission of teaching, doing research and creative work. Higher education remains one of the very last sectors of American exceptionalism. We have the best universities and university systems in the world.   As academics, we should have a little more faith in ourselves, our universities and in the ability that our actual work of teaching, research and creative activity can and will change society.  We do not need or want our institutions of higher education to embrace shortcuts towards the goal of constructing a better, and more just society.  It is a well-educated, ethical, enlightened, informed citizenry that has and will always change the US for the better.  It is our job as institutions of higher education to ensure that our students are as citizens ready to act upon society and to change it – hopefully for the better.  This is how our universities should participate as institutional actors.  In short, we do have a role to play in creating change in America.   Our role is to do better at building an educated and enlightened, more historically aware, ethical citizenry.  But, there are no short cuts and we can do this only by doing what we do best; by teaching and researching and engaging in our creative work.  To do otherwise would be to collectively abandon our role in society with the knowledge that no one else will step in and do our job.  To do otherwise is to replace our important role in this project of building our democracy with a fool’s errand.   The Kalven report explained this eloquently.

“Our basic conviction is that a great university can perform greatly for the betterment of society. It should not, therefore, permit itself to be diverted from its mission into playing the role of a second-rate political force or influence.”

 Sincerely,

Adam Drisin, RA