Following Northwestern’s recent move toward institutional neutrality and the announcement of new demonstration policies, some faculty members have expressed concern about the lack of transparency regarding enforcement of these protocols and their implications on academic freedom.
“All these announcements that central administration sends out, whether it be (University President Michael) Schill or (University Provost Kathleen) Hagerty, it’s all about defending freedom and defending speech, but it’s actually all about closing it down,” Spanish and Portuguese Prof. Jorge Coronado said.
Alongside universities across the country, the President’s Advisory Committee on Free Expression and Institutional Speech wrote that faculty, staff and administration should make statements not as official representatives of their NU institutions “to avoid coercing dissenting community members into silence.”
The updated demonstration policy, released in September, includes restrictions such as set times to demonstrate at The Rock, policies for hanging up flyers and banners, and mandatory removal of face masks and coverings by students when asked by authorized University officials.
Coronado said he was not surprised by the new policy and statement but was shocked at the extent of the restrictions, calling the additions “a severe restriction of academic freedom.”
“We have a right to speak from our expertise, whether that be individually or collectively, as scholars, not only a right but a responsibility to speak about these matters,” he said. “It seems to me that the goal is to stop statements in official capacities from these sorts of faculty and to stop collective statements from departments and units.”
He said the University was unclear on who the statement applies to and how it will be enforced, which might cause people to refrain from speaking out.
Coronado said that, because of the ambiguous enforcement procedures, “some understand that if they go against these new restrictions, there might be some form of retribution.” He pointed to the misdemeanor charges of three faculty members and a graduate student over the summer for their involvement in April’s pro-Palestinian encampment.
Political science Prof. Jacqueline Stevens said these actions “make it clear that (Schill) is not somebody who actually upholds those kinds of values.”
Coronado and Stevens are both on the executive committee of NU’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, dedicated to advancing and protecting academic freedom and its principles at the top of the Faculty Handbook.
“The committee is one that (Schill) handpicked,” Stevens said. “It doesn’t include people who have familiarity with AAUP principles or any commitment to academic freedom.”
Stevens said because of the lack of transparency, the statements on institutional neutrality lack credibility.
Following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas, Schill made his own statements condemning the actions of Hamas and emphasized the stance as “the view of Mike Schill, citizen, Jew and human being.”
She said despite Schill labeling his addresses as personal and separate from the University, “he needs to explain why the policy outcomes that are coming out under his leadership all just happened to line up with the policy preferences of Mike Schill, individual.”
“It’s disingenuous to expect that the people who are working in an institution and executing the orders of their leadership are not going to not feel coerced into pursuing certain outcomes on the basis of what their leaders are saying,” Stevens said.
She added that the administration limited guardrails in enforcing when and how to charge a violation, which builds an “inequality in the ability of the faculty, compared to the administration, to enforce the protocols in any particular instance.”
Stevens said faculty attempted to question Schill on his decision-making about the encampment agreement in April’s biannual Faculty Assembly, but they were unable to before he left the assembly.
“The only way that we could have confidence that there was a bona fide investigation and neutrality and a fair process would be to have transparency” Stevens said. “We don’t have that. Michael Schill himself violated the one policy that actually obligates him to answer questions of the faculty.”
University spokesperson Erin Karter told The Daily that violations against the Statement on Free Expression and Institutional Speech are not enforceable because it is not currently a policy.
“The statement guides leadership, including the president and provost, in taking actions and making decisions about institutional communications,” Karter said. “Discussions across the University will inform, over time, whether institutional speech components of the statement will be developed into policy or protocol that will include formal expectations.”
Faculty Senate President and McCormick Prof. Jill Wilson said Faculty Senate members were invited to and present at the committee discussions about the Statement on Free Expression and Institutional Speech.
She said the first official Faculty Senate meeting of the academic year, which is scheduled for Oct. 16, opens the floor for topics faculty choose to discuss and ask for further clarification, including the topics of institutional neutrality and demonstration policies.
“As the Faculty Senate identifies issues that we want to push back on, I think we can take those to administration, but it’s a democratic process, and we want to give those chances, those things a chance to arise from the deliberative process,” Wilson said.
The AAUP’s NU executive committee has since sent a letter to University officials calling for the retraction of the demonstration policy and its related protocols.
The letter urges the administration to reconsider “the immense use of administrative resources now restricting education” and to align policies in accordance with the “principles of the AAUP, including academic freedom and shared governance.”
“I think navigating the restrictions means following what we understand to be the basic tenets of academic freedom and what we hope should be meaningful faculty governance,” Coronado said.
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