In a joint statement with Provost Kathleen Hagerty Friday, University President Michael Schill announced a new policy on free expression and institutional speech at Northwestern — echoing many of the principles from the University of Chicago’s Kalven Report.
In 1967, a time marked by massive social disagreement and unrest, UChicago released a faculty committee-written report now known as the Kalven Report. The report advocated for universities to adopt institutional neutrality — the view that institutions shouldn’t take sides in political or social issues that don’t directly affect them.
Nearly 50 years later, UChicago reiterated this commitment to free speech in its 2015 Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression, now referred to as the Chicago Statement. The Chicago Statement didn’t just call for academic and speech freedom – it explained why it mattered: “(so that) all members of the University community have the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn.” A national nonprofit free speech organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, endorsed the statement shortly after it was released.
Despite being so close to the birthplace of the Chicago Statement, NU has unfortunately accumulated a record over the past decade of opposition to free expression.
The same year UChicago released the Chicago Statement, 2015, Feinberg administrators censored bioethicist Alice Dreger over a sensitive article included in a faculty-produced medical journal that “reflected poorly on the University,” they said. She ultimately resigned later that year, writing on her website, “I can’t work at a medical school where my dean is allowed to censor the work of his faculty in the name of the hospital brand’s welfare.”
This incident, while one of the most publicized, was not isolated. NU has been named in the “10 worst colleges for free speech” list, created by FIRE, in 2016, 2018 and 2021. Events in the past two years have only intensified these concerns — with tensions on campus spiking last spring around the Deering Meadow encampment and messages surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. NU alumni drafted an open letter in support of free expression and University neutrality in late March.
This is why Schill’s recent statement, which said University speech should be used with caution, is so vital. It represents the University’s commitment to return to our founding mission of 1851 and our motto, pursuing “quaecumque sunt vera” or “whatsoever things are true.” This mission ensures that NU will equip some of the world’s potential future leaders to develop critical thinking skills rather than simply parroting the majority viewpoint.
NU putting out statements on broad issues, political or otherwise, discourages discourse on what could be one of the top campuses for meaningful discussion given our students’ diversity of viewpoints. In recent years, though, conformity and fear of having the “wrong” view — which I’ve admittedly felt myself — have caused our student body to conglomerate into a mass when divisive issues arise, whether they agree with the masses or not.
Schill’s statement endorsing policies of neutrality and academic freedom indicates NU administrators have taken a long look at the pros and cons of free expression and decided more speech — not less — is the answer. I have confidence in individual faculty members’ and students’ abilities to engage in productive, honest discourse and respect viewpoint diversity.
The question now? Whether on-campus culture will follow suit.
Nora Collins is a Medill senior. She can be contacted at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected]. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.
