Universities as free speech incubators?

Discourse Magazine has an interesting conversation between the Mercatus Center’s Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange director Ben Klutsey, and professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, Sigal Ben-Porath. They discuss several topics, but I’d like to focus on their remarks about how universities can address polarization and free speech issues both off and on campus.

Academic Freedom in a Polarized Society 

Public universities have garnered a reputation in some circles lately for being hotbeds of leftist-authoritarian ideologies. Several red-state legislators are gunning for their chance to call down woke faculty and administrators they see as stymying intellectual diversity on campus. As with most panics like this, it isn’t entirely untrue that instances of authoritarianism are happening, but it is certainly not the case that every university in the country is brimming with authoritarian Marxists hell-bent smothering non-leftist voices on campus. 

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression notes in their Spotlight on Speech Codes 2023 that, despite an increase in the percentage of schools receiving an overall red light rating (given to schools with “policies that clearly and substantially restrict free speech”), the number of green light schools (given to schools with “policies that do not seriously imperil free expression”) grew from 58 to 60. (The Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System’s new harassment policy is responsible for the uptick in overall red light ratings). 

For now, things are trending in an okay direction.

But does that mean we’ve entered a world where we all embrace free speech and academic freedom? No. There are still problems both on and off campus. One problem that Klutsey and Ben-Porath identify is the degree of polarization we’re experiencing today. According to Pew Research Center, as of August 2022, “72% of Republicans regard Democrats as more immoral,” while “63% of Democrats say the same about Republicans.” Ben-Porath refers to this as “affective polarization.” She observes that while we do not have many substantive disagreements on actual policy, 

Pew’s data bears this out:

So what do we do in a culture where antipathy toward our fellow citizens is increasingly common? What institution (or institutions) is capable of addressing such an ideological problem? The academy stands out as a promising candidate.

Universities as Free Speech Incubators? 

Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy shares the thoughts of law Prof. Anup Malani on the role universities can play in righting the ship in his 2022 piece “Enforcing the First Amendment on Campus Won’t, by Itself, Address the Problem of Academic Freedom.” The upshot of the piece is that the “Chicago Principles” alone won’t solve the problem of free speech and academic freedom on campus. Rules that don’t match the underlying culture are unlikely to succeed. Instead, he argues that universities should actively foster a campus culture of free speech and tolerance. He writes:

He goes on to insist that universities must go further still. Just inculcating a culture of free speech without diverse viewpoints will not prepare students to be citizens in a liberal society; campuses should reflect the world that students will join in their post-graduate lives. Allowing students to practice tolerating different ideas while on campus will hopefully instill the values and habits of a liberal citizen once they leave the university and enter the real world.

Malani concludes:

And what about those of us who do not attend college? Going back to Ben-Porath, she urges that K-12 should also serve as training grounds for tolerance and viewpoint diversity.

Do Universities Pressure Students to Conform to Certain Beliefs? 

Idealizing the academy as a place for students to practice being good liberals is fine, but what about the reality of it? We are constantly bombarded with stories of biased professors imposing their ideologies on their students; we have the data to prove it. But a Washington Post study from 2020 that looked at 100 campuses suggests there’s more nuance to this observation. According to the survey, 

But the devil is in the details. The pressure that students felt depended upon the majors they were in: 

Of the students surveyed on this question, “47.1 percent reported that they had changed their political leaning during college.” But is this such a bad thing? To me, this reads as the university working. Academia should expose students to opposing and unfamiliar ideas. That’s the point. Without it, the university is just a job factory. Grappling with uncomfortable ideas is a part of life and helps us grow as people. So while I’m not saying that there are no problems in the academy, I am saying that, overall, it seems to be doing its job of challenging students in productive ways, allowing them to contend with ideas they might not otherwise encounter and giving them a chance to evaluate their own beliefs.

Conclusion: Academic Freedom Is Doing Okay, But Could Always Be Better 

Klutsey and Ben-Porath’s conversation is fruitful for anyone interested in exploring what it takes to nourish a liberal society. As long as universities actively promote diversity of thought on their campuses, we are more likely to see good habits spill over into the broader society. Again, it is not the case that universities are without their problems, but it is certainly also not the case that they are festering pits of intolerance. Like many things in the culture wars, we hear about the planes that don’t land. The adults in the room should take their responsibilities seriously and work to promote practices and habits that engender the ability to live peacefully in a free society. And if they don’t, their interests don’t lie in protecting students or stamping out hate speech. Instead, we should see efforts to chill academic freedom and free speech for what they are: authoritarian impulses we should resist at every turn.