The fall of Penn’s president puts free speech on campus at a crossroads
The overthrow of University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill — four days after her testimony before Congress on whether students should be punished for calling for genocide — was a victory for those who believe pro-Palestinian protesters have gone too far have gone into their speech.
For many Jews, protest slogans such as ‘intifada revolution’ and ‘from the river to the sea’ are anti-Semitic and threatening – and evidence of a double standard. Universities, they say, have ignored their fears and pleas for safety while creating a battalion of administrators committed to diversity and equity programs and quick to protect their students.
“Their moral blindness when it comes to anti-Semitism is especially troubling when it appears to conflict so dramatically with their approach to prejudice and hatred toward other groups,” Kenneth Marcus, head of the Brandeis Center, a Jewish civil rights group, said in response to Ms. Magill’s resignation.
For many observers of the campus speech wars, however, this moment marks a disastrous moment for free speech.
After all, Ms. Magill’s troubles began not with the hearing but with a Palestinian writers’ conference held on campus in September. Penn donors asked her to cancel the event, which they said involved anti-Semitic speakers, but she declined on freedom of speech grounds.
“What just happened is they canceled Liz Magill,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, an education historian at Penn who writes about free speech. “They reinforced the cancel culture. What this means is that there will be even more fear and anxiety about what you can say, and how, and that cannot be good for the university.”
Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors characterized the recent attacks on universities as disruptions that threaten the ability of students and faculty to teach, study and discuss Israel and Palestine.
“These attacks strike at the heart of an educational institution’s mission: to promote open, critical, and rigorous research and education that can produce knowledge for the common good in a democratic society,” the association said in a statement on Saturday.
Penn and Harvard are not bound by the First Amendment, but they are committed to providing the same protections. On Tuesday, Harvard’s board of trustees said it stood with the university’s president, Claudine Gay, who came under fire after testifying alongside Ms. Magill. “We support open discourse and academic freedom,” the board said in a statement.
However, critics are quick to point out that universities have not always done this consistently. For example, in 2021, a department at MIT canceled a public lecture by Dorian Abbot, a geophysicist from the University of Chicago, because he had publicly opposed certain aspects of affirmative action. Stanford law students harassed a conservative federal judge who had ruled against gay marriage and transgender rights.
At Penn, conservatives condemned an effort to punish Amy Wax, a law professor, for a series of actions she took, including some protected by academic freedom, such as encouraging a white supremacist to speak in front of her class.
Steven Pinker, a cognitive psychologist at Harvard who opposes the crackdown on free speech, said that speech itself, no matter how ugly, should not be punished. But, he said, universities have not done their best as champions of unfettered debate.
“The problem with the university presidents who say that calls for genocide are not punishable is that they have such a ridiculous record of defending freedom of speech in the past that they have no leg to stand on, ” said Dr. Pinker in an interview. .
The question is what happens from here.
There is already a debate going on at Penn about changing speech codes.
The board of advisors at the university’s Wharton business school — which helped lead the charge against Ms. Magill — recently advised in a letter that Penn amend the university’s code of conduct.
One of the proposals: Students and teachers will not “engage in hate speech, both veiled and explicit, that incites violence.” Nor will they “use language that threatens the physical safety of community members.” And anyone found violating the standards would be “subject to immediate discipline.”
But some observers warn that further restrictions on speech are not the right solution.
Jonathan Friedman, executive director of PEN America, a free speech advocacy group, said the Wharton proposal was vague and would threaten to ban a wide range of speech. It would be unenforceable, He wroteand would probably have an adverse effect.
Dr. Pinker argued in a recent essay banning anti-Semitic speech would not improve the situation. He said universities should have clear policies in place that “could start with the First Amendment,” but then draw a line on behavior that interferes with a university’s educational mission.
So taking placards would be OK, he said, but no whining or vandalism – which is already the standard at many universities. Also banned would be gloves from intimidating protesters who confront students walking to classes.
Still, the problems for Dr. Pinker bigger than just speech codes. He argued that a university truly committed to freedom of expression would reset its campus culture to be more accepting of diverse opinions. That includes, he said, “diversity of views” in hiring, as well as institutional neutrality on the issues of the day.
Harvard announced last month that as part of its response to anti-Semitism, the university would “more fully integrate anti-Semitism into the work” of its Office for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging.
But instead of expanding the scope of diversity and equity programs, Dr. Pinker called for the opposite. He argues that these programs, which he believes should be curbed, enforce “a uniformity of opinion, a hierarchy of victim groups and the exclusion of freethinkers.”
Scott Bok, who stepped down as chairman of Penn’s board when Ms. Magill resigned, disputed that the school had become “too woke” and defended the need for diversity efforts. The Penn he attended in the 1980s, he recalled, did not have many black, Asian or Latino students. “We should not return to that world,” he said wrote this week in an op-ed article in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
For Professor Zimmerman, a true commitment to the issue of free speech means that universities – and their critics – must accept that language is sometimes offensive.
Despite the uproar, Ms. Magill’s comments at the congressional hearing were accurate, he said. Context matters when deciding whether a student who calls for genocide should be punished.
When it comes to freedom of speech, “there’s no other way to say it: you either believe in it or you don’t believe in it,” Professor Zimmerman said. “And if you believe in it, it means protection from horrible things people say, unless they pose an immediate and direct threat to other people.”