Photo by ACasualPenguin/Pixabay On Sept. 12, UCLA announced that Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt has accepted a recommendation from a working group that the university should not weigh in on political matters.
The working group, headed by UCLA School of Law Dean Michael Waterstone, submitted a recommendation — accepted in full by Interim Chancellor Hunt — that moving forward, “UCLA’s chancellor, executive vice chancellor and provost, vice chancellors, vice provosts and deans should not make public statements on societal, public and political matters, unless those matters directly affect the university’s ability to support a research and educational environment where free expression thrives.” Such institutional statements, the recommendation explained, “can imply a false sense of unanimity about a given topic, stifle the free exchange of ideas, and risk making parts of our diverse community feel silenced or unheard. A focus on these kinds of statements can also divert university leaders’ attention away from their core responsibilities and pursuit of institutional goals.”
The working group’s report elaborated that “whether — and if so, how — a contentious issue relates to this essential mission of the university will itself be disputed at times; as with any general rule, this one would require university officials to exercise judgment in good faith, subject to critique by community members,” adding that in borderline cases, “the presumption should be for not issuing a statement.”
The “recommendation does not extend to department chairs and heads of academic programs, centers and institutes. There are often similar reasons for these leaders to be reluctant to issue statements so as not to exert pressure, however inadvertent, on how the discussion of important issues unfolds in their units, and so as not to risk any misimpression that they speak for others.”
UCLA Professor Kira Stein, who heads the Jewish Faculty Resilience Group (JFrg) at UCLA, told The Journal that while JFrg supports institutional neutrality, she wants to know what the university means by it. “When antisemitism and indoctrination within the institutions, are they going to hide behind neutrality and refuse to act? That’s my concern,” she said. “There’s confusion. The real question is whether they have the will to address these internal issues as they have to other forms of hate.” Stein said that universities like UCLA have actively spoken out “against prejudice and hate toward other groups but when Jews become targets, they demure. So this double-standard is what has offended and endangered the Jewish community… the selective application of neutrality becomes a shield to deflect responsibility from enforcing their own anti-hate and anti-discrimination policies internally.”
Jerald Mosley and Dominic Manser, co-founders of the nonpartisan group Bruin Alumni in Defense of Free Speech, called for UCLA to adopt a policy of institutional neutrality in a Sept. 10 op-ed in the Los Angeles Daily News. They contended that that the university taking sides on political matters “creates a campus orthodoxy, an officially sanctioned political position that marginalizes dissenting views … Fear of ostracism for taking unpopular positions, or for contradicting the university’s official opinion, raises professional risks for untenured academics that can trigger self-censorship. Prospective students or faculty members should not have to worry whether they will find a home on campus because their political views are officially disfavored.”
The JFrg at UCLA had posted on X on Sept. 11 that it “strongly” supports UCLA adopting a policy of institutional neutrality. “It must be emphasized that, as a practical matter, this principle has not been in effect — the university has already weighed in on various social issues,” the JFrg wrote. “It saddens and disappoints us that, during a time that UCLA and other universities have already spoken out forcefully against various forms of hate and prejudice, they lack the strength and will to condemn antisemitism with the same clarity and urgency. This selective response deeply affects and endangers the Jewish community, which deserves the same protection accorded to others.”
The group added: “It’s also important to underscore that institutional neutrality relates to external matters — whether commenting on events in Ukraine, at the U.S. Capitol, or involving police departments across the country. It does not mean that the university remains aloof from commenting about internal matters. Consequently, institutional neutrality furnishes no excuse for inaction when it comes to addressing antisemitism or any form of bigotry within the university. To redress past failures, UCLA has a special obligation when it comes to enforcing existing anti-discrimination and anti-indoctrination policies and ensuring a safe, respectful environment on campus. Universities must be vigilant in rooting out antisemitism and bigotry within their own walls. We look forward to UCLA meeting its obligations in that regard.”
— Jewish Faculty at UCLA🇮🇱🇺🇸🎗️ (@JFrgatUCLA) September 11, 2024
Among the academic institutions to recently adopt institutional neutrality include Barnard College, Stanford University and the University of Pennsylvania. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has an ongoing list of universities and colleges that have adopted a policy or statement on institutional neutrality.
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