Several elite American universities have recently been involved in increasingly dramatic debates over the meaning and value of free speech and intellectual diversity. Two weeks ago, the University of Virginia, my current home institution, was the site of an event sponsored by the state’s Department of Education called the “Higher Education Summit on Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity.” The summit generated pledges by the presidents of every state university in Virginia (and some private universities) to create “action plans” to advance the goals of free speech and intellectual diversity.
Last week, the presidents of Penn, Harvard, and MIT provided plenty of evidence on how they view these goals. They explained to Congress how their understanding of free speech and intellectual diversity did not allow them to protect their Jewish students from a range of actions taken in recent days by students and faculty on their campuses. The university presidents repeatedly hid behind the right to free speech, saying that the Constitution would not allow them to do more to suppress antisemitic advocacy on campus. Outraged by Penn President Liz Magill’s failure to more clearly and forcefully condemn antisemitism on its campus, several mega-donors to Penn announced they would not be giving any more money unless Magill was fired, and after one such donor effectively withdrew $100 million that had already been donated, Magill resigned this past weekend.
At the congressional hearing, Republican members of Congress such as Harvard alumna Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York asked the university administrators why it
