UMich latest university to adopt institutional neutrality
‘We must open the way for our individual faculty’s expertise, intelligence, scholarship and wisdom to inform our state and society in their own voice, free from institutional interference,’ said a UMich regent.
Another regent said that institutional neutrality ‘is the position that is the most supportive of faculty.’
The University of Michigan (UMich) Board of Regents recently adopted a position of institutional neutrality.
The unanimous vote, which occurred on Thursday, means that UMich will “adopt a heavy presumption against institutional statements on political and social issues that are not directly connected to internal university functions,” according to the school’s press release.
“This institution should start discussions about the consequential issues of our time, not end them,” said Regent Mark Bernstein. “We must open the way for our individual faculty’s expertise, intelligence, scholarship and wisdom to inform our state and society in their own voice, free from institutional interference.”
He added that the new policy would stop the “suppression of ideas in departments where faculty who seek promotion or retention” might “feel compelled to fall in line with an expressed institutional orthodoxy embraced by their superiors.”
Another regent, Sarah Hubbard, said that institutional neutrality “is the position that is the most supportive of faculty. It says the experts and scholars should be the ones engaged in public debate and discourse. They should move knowledge and fields forward. It’s not up to chairs, deans or administrators to make those arguments on behalf of the university.”
The Board of Regents’s vote came following a recommendation in favor of institutional neutrality issued by the Committee on the University of Michigan Principles on Diversity of Thought and Freedom of Expression in September.
The committee found that the university’s taking official stances on controversial issues “[suggests] that those who disagree are unwelcome” and makes “would-be dissenters . . . worry that voicing disagreement may jeopardize admission, grades, or advancement.”
UMich is not the first university to adopt a position of institutional neutrality. The administrations of the Universities of Washington State, Pennsylvania, Southern California, Purdue, Texas, and Harvard also adopted institutional neutrality.
Campus Reform has contacted the University of Michigan for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
