Principle or Chickenshit?

Last week Cornell University joined a growing list of prominent colleges and universities that have pledged their institutions and leadership to neutrality on “hot issues.” Such stances have drawn praise from most observers, who insist that educational institutions are for, well, educating, by which they mean reading, writing and arithmetic.

In a welcome partial departure from this dismal trend, Wesleyan’s president, Michael Roth, penned a NYT Op-ed expressing his enthusiasm for a fall semester of lively campus activism. At least Roth sees a place for more than expensive vocational training in higher education.

But my instincts tell me that the neutrality craze rests less on a foundation of deep principle than on a bed of deep chickenshit.

An alleged justification for neutrality is that an institutional stance in a controversy would wield undue influence on students and faculty, thereby inhibiting free discourse on campus. Uh-huh, sure, yeah, er . . . no. The idea that students or faculty are “inhibited” by administrators or boards is absurd on its face. Both of these constituencies like nothing more than to challenge authority.

So what’s really going on here?

The best general advice is follow the money. College boards are disproportionately comprised of really rich people, whose fortunes were not accumulated by rocking any boats. They, in turn, hire leaders and pay them lavishly with the tacit understanding that they too will refrain from wave-making. For examples of fawning neutrality one need look no further than the recent cowardly performances by college leaders at Congressional hearings. (In that case, the topic was indeed knotty, as there is no “winning” position in the dual awfulness of Hamas and Netanyahu.)

Johns Hopkins is firmly on this bandwagon. Committing to a "posture of restraint," they noted that university statements should be made "only in the limited circumstances where an issue is clearly related to a direct, concrete, and demonstrable interest or function of the university.”

In all these instances, college leaders are the only ones wearing muzzles. This represents the steady decline of leadership in favor of management.

The abdication of leadership has been particularly disappointing in matters of diversity, equity and inclusion. As DEI programs have been attacked, scuttled and ridiculed, so-called leaders have retreated. (Readers who enjoy citing the occasional excesses of diversity training, may chime in by way of comments.)

Examples of supposed institutional overreach include the colleges and universities that spoke out in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the protests that followed. In what alternate universe are the senseless murders of Black men and boys at the hands of police considered controversial?

It is dismaying to observe this trend in light of the courageous stances taken by college leaders in the civil rights era and the anti-war protests of the Vietnam era. In hindsight, those positions seem uncontroversial, but they were incredibly bold at the time.

It is remarkably short-sighted to insist that institutions of higher learning and their leaders remain neutral on social, political or cultural issues.

There are myriad other voices in these matters, most with a much stronger self-interest.

* There are obscenely wealthy corporate leaders who use their bully (literally) pulpits to advance views unrelated to their products or services.

* Leaders/owners of sports franchises advance one viewpoint or another quite often.

A great many decisions about education policy are made by hedge fund managers.

Places like Hillsdale College speak with an institutional voice to attempt a wholesale hijacking of our social norms and structure.

Hundreds if not thousands of illegitimately tax-exempt churches, particularly Catholic ones, use immense wealth and power to influence the world.

You may offer your own examples of how individuals and institutions use the power of wealth or position to influence public policy or perception.

In every one of these examples there are employees or other constituents who may not agree with the stance of the leader or the institution, but that doesn’t “neutralize” or muzzle them.

Why then would institutions representing knowledge, intellect and ethical integrity be silent? “Hot issues,” most of all, can benefit from the moral and intellectual clarity an institution of higher learning can offer.

In higher education, I guess only money is allowed to talk.