Some Cautious Counsel to the Academic Freedom Council

If there’s one thing this campus seems it will never be free from, it’s the discourse on academic freedom.

Recently, this discourse has taken the form of the new Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard: a group of more than 70 Harvard professors gathered to protect free academic inquiry at Harvard. They plan to organize workshops and courses on academic freedom, stand in solidarity with Harvard academics whose speech is curtailed, and overall hold the University accountable for free inquiry.

This Editorial Board has been a steady supporter of free exchange of opinions for years. Any other stance would be hypocritical of us; we depend on people feeling empowered to speak, argue, and defend their opinions in order to function.

We thus agree with the principles motivating the council. Any initiative that seeks to encourage academic freedom can count us as a first friend. But our continued support requires an honest effort to support the neutral ideal of academic freedom on campus.

Frankly, the explanation of the council’s formation in the Boston Globe reads to us as dishonest. In council members Steven A. Pinker and Bertha K. Madras’ own words, “When activists are shouting into an administrator’s ear, we will speak calmly but vigorously into the other one.”

This language inappropriately portrays activism as an agitated impulsive monolith, incapable of measured thought. In reality, activists span from writers and artists printing calls for action, to organizers rallying with megaphones in hand. And even the loudest protests require dedication and planning.

Furthermore, activism and academic freedom are allies, not foes. Just this semester, activism has been instrumental in ensuring academic freedom on campus. The council would benefit from collaborating with, rather than castigating, activists.

This disregard towards advocacy signals to us a larger worry that the council is taking a one-sided view of academic freedom, conflating this freedom of speech with freedom from criticism or accountability. Academic freedom requires academic value; factually incorrect opinions, no matter how reviled, cannot lay claim to such protections.

Among the council are members whose controversies are not matters of slighted academic freedom, but of reasonable backlash given their nonacademic content. J. Mark Ramseyer’s interpretation of comfort women as contracted sex workers was flagrantly false considering the historical record, and not worth our time. Kit K. Parker’s unethical course on policing completely disregarded racial concerns, undermining its claims to objectivity. Ronald S. Sullivan Jr.’s decision to defend Harvey Weinstein blatantly betrayed the trust of his Winthrop House students. These improper actions cannot hide under calls to some ‘get out of jail free card’ of academic freedom.

The inclusion of these professors on the council undermines the entire initiative’s integrity as a faithful advocate for academic freedom across the political spectrum. What kind of scholarship does the council truly want to protect? Surely not only the kinds of pseudoscience that receive “crippling accusations of racism, sexism, or transphobia,” as Pinker and Madras seem so afraid of.

The suppression of academic freedom is an issue that knows no political lines, existing even for academics researching these very systems of oppression. True support of academic freedom requires protecting people of all ideologies. Would the council have protected the freedom of Cornel R. West ’74 and Lorgia García Peña, two professors denied tenure seemingly as a result of the novel content of their otherwise uncontroversially exceptional academic work? Will it protect non-American scholars persecuted for their research and identities?

Ultimately, academic freedom can only thrive in an environment where we lean into, not run from, discourse. Across the political spectrum and the nation, there is too often a knee-jerk reaction to call beliefs beyond the pale, without seriously engaging with the issues.

Everyone should feel free to express their controversial opinions, but others should feel just as free to respond. While we should recognize the historical and identity-based reasons that certain conversations are discomforting, this is not a sign to stop speaking, but to start speaking respectfully. In thinking critically and kindly together, we can construct a campus-wide academic freedom worth having.

We don’t entirely trust the council’s intentions in constructing this freedom right now, but we remain cautiously optimistic for its future. You might see us in the audience of upcoming workshops, hoping for our skepticism in the council to be proven wrong. Until then, in the spirit of free inquiry, we’ve provided our criticisms to build a more productive campus discourse.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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