摘要：当我和同事们对《自由探究论文》（AEI出版社，2025年4月）进行最后的润饰时，我们意识到，我们委托撰写的所有文章都是在2024年春天反犹太主义亲巴勒斯坦抗议活动爆发之前写成的。我们需要一位精通言论自由的专家来解读这场动乱，因为言论自由的范围不 仅限于课堂，也
正文一：
当我和同事们对《自由探究论文》（AEI出版社，2025年4月）进行最后的润饰时，我们意识到，我们委托撰写的所有文章都是在2024年春天反犹太主义亲巴勒斯坦抗议活动爆发之前写成的。我们需要一位精通言论自由的专家来解读这场动乱，因为言论自由的范围不 仅限于课堂，也延伸到了榆树林立的庭院和校园庭院。因此，我们立即向个人权利与表达基金会（FIRE）主席格雷格·卢基亚诺夫（Greg Lukianoff）寻求分析。以下他的评论为大学如何思考捍卫学生抗议的权利、保护犹太学生以及惩戒那些威胁其他学生安全和扰乱校园生活的人提供了深刻的指导。
几个月后，当这本书即将付印时，川普政府将联邦资金与各种要求挂钩，展开了消除大学反犹太主义和意识形态灌输的运动。今年 3 月，美国政府决定削减哥伦比亚大学的 4 亿美元资助，除非该校同意进行一系列改革，包括彻底改革其抗议政策、安全措施和中东研究部门。最引人注目的干预是针对哈佛大学的。其中包括对招生和纪律程序的修改，最终威胁取消大学的免税地位，否则将面临失去高达 90 亿美元联邦资金的风险。
2025年4月22日，150多所大学和学院的校长联名签署了一封信，谴责为获取联邦资金而操纵私立高等教育机构政策的行为。他们写道：「身为美国学院、大学和学术团体的领导者，我们一致反对前所未有的政府过度干预和政治干预，这些干预目前正危及美国高等教育。」我也有同样的担忧。
我个人的补充是，我们不能忽视十多年来存在的最初挑衅行为——即系统性地压制不受欢迎的学术和言论。即使现任政府为纠正拜登和欧巴马政府的过度行为做出了广泛的、有时看似武断的努力，但更大的目标仍然具有永恒的价值：恢复学术自由。 – 莎莉·萨特尔
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假设您是「假设大学」的校长，这是东北一所大型私立院校。虽然私立院校不一定受到《第一修正案》的约束，但贵校长期以来一直向学生承诺，他们在就读期间将享有《第一修正案》赋予的权利。许多法院都将言论自由的承诺作为合约强制执行，在加州，州法律禁止大学因在校外受保护的言论或行为而惩罚学生。因此，HypoU 有一些法律义务，限制其在校园发生骚乱时可以采取的行动。 （你会发现，绝大多数高等教育机构都是如此。如果排除军事院校和高度宗教化的大学，那些以承诺较少自由而闻名的著名学校屈指可数。）
你的机构应该有规则。选择性执行规则是虚伪的主要表现，使得大学管理者在需要道德权威时却没有道德权威。如果你迫害那些使用「短视」等歧视残疾人语言的教授，却又维护呼吁灭绝某个族群的权利，那么你看起来就不像一个关心言论自由的人；你看上去就像一个偏执且偏心的人。
您的规则应该清晰地传达并明显地执行。在入学指导和手册中向学生清楚地传达，并在手册和培训中向校园员工（包括执法人员）清楚地传达。透过明确捍卫属于其范围之内的言论并追究属于其范围之外的言论，明显地执行了这项规定。
在这些指导和训练中，你应该训练管理人员不要监管言论或传达政治正统观念，而是要捍卫和促进言论和讨论。如果你的团队或教授有偏见，他们会为诸如大声呵斥和学生取消课程之类的事情找借口，那么现在是时候开始摆脱他们了——或者至少将他们调到不会与学生接触的职位。
那么，哪些规则必须认真灌输和尊重呢？
其中一些是政府强制要求的，需要符合学生贷款资助的资格，例如反骚扰规则。这些规则要求大学限制「如此严重、普遍和客观上具有冒犯性，并且如此破坏和损害受害者的教育体验，以至于受害学生实际上被剥夺了平等获得学校资源和机会的权利」的行为所造成的伤害。
例如，2023 年 10 月，康乃尔大学的一名学生因在网路上对学校的犹太学生进行一系列威胁而被捕，其中包括威胁割断男性学生的喉咙、性侵女性学生并将她们从桥上扔下去，以及「带着突击步枪到校园，射杀所有你们这些猪犹太人」。不出所料，学校采取了行动：他们打电话给执法部门，执法人员逮捕并指控了这名学生。
但这是一个极端的例子，重要的是要注意规则并没有要求学院做什么来阻止骚扰：审查发言者。您的机构有义务采取行动减轻骚扰的不利影响，但潜在选择的范围是无限的；只要它不会对任何一方接受教育的能力造成实质性损害，就满足了义务。一些管理人员对此观点感到困惑：联邦法规规定的行动义务并不构成第一修正案的例外。
一个人可能拥有《第一修正案》赋予的参与抗议的权利，但同时，学校必须采取措施帮助那些觉得自己受到该活动针对的学生。
这一点很重要，因为教育部在回应校园抗议活动时表示，当没有个人行为者做出「严重、普遍和客观上具有冒犯性」的行为或言论，但一个或多个群体的集体行动造成了「严重、普遍和客观上具有冒犯性」的环境时，大学仍有义务采取行动。例如，如果犹太学生必须经过高呼口号的人群、带有偏见的海报和焚烧的肖像才能到达每一节课，那么学校有义务向犹太学生提供帮助并不一定意味着高呼口号的学生可以受到审查。一个人可能拥有《第一修正案》赋予的参与抗议的权利，但同时，学校必须采取措施帮助那些觉得自己受到该活动针对的学生。
您所在机构的指导思想必须是，任何学生都不能因为其种族、性别、宗教或国籍或对这些方面的看法受到损害的环境而被剥夺其教育投资的价值。如果学生可以合理地争辩说这就是当前的氛围，那么学校就必须做出回应——但回应不一定是惩罚性的，也不一定是针对言论。
该机构还应制定哪些其他规则？据推测，它对人们聚集的地方有「时间、地点和方式」的限制，虽然很宽松，但它们可能禁止人们直接在户外公共空间生活。也应制定规则，禁止一切形式的“起哄否决”，包括大声呵斥或阻拦发言者或其他有组织的行动，旨在阻碍进行和平讨论和辩论的能力，特别是在持强烈反对观点的人们之间。 FIRE 的大学言论自由排名调查显示，学生越来越习惯用自己的行动来压制言论。在2024年的排名中，45%的学生表示，阻止其他学生听演讲至少在少数情况下是可以的；而一年前，这一比例为 37%。 2024 年，27% 的人表示，使用暴力阻止演讲者至少在极少数情况下是可以接受的；而一年前，这一比例为 20%。
请记住，所有这些规则都必须是观点和内容中立的。观点中立意味着规则不会对某些观点比其他观点更严厉地惩罚；内容中立意味着规则不会区分问题。在第一修正案的背景下，观点歧视完全违宪，而内容歧视则被推定为违宪，需要法院的严格审查，这通常意味着机构的损失。在言论自由的文化背景下，根据某人的想法制定规则会破坏鼓励表达这些想法的目标。
第一天
想像学生们已经开始在校园里抗议。假设他们抗议你是因为他们认为你的薪水太高，他们想拿走你三分之二的薪水投资在为抗议者送餐。
当然，你知道这不是事实；您的虚拟薪资完全符合各机构的平均水平以及您为 HypoU 带来的价值。但尽管如此，他们还是会对你大喊大叫。
一百名抗议者聚集在你办公室外的草坪上，举着标语，上面写着：「学费上涨，工资飙升」、「教育高于薪酬」和「我们的债务，你的利润」。
第一修正案赋予了犯错的权利，因为如果没有，我们就需要任命一个真理仲裁者。
他们高喊：「资助我们的未来，而不是你的薪水！」从窗户望出去，你可以看到前来参观校园、好奇的家长们正担心地看着人群。抗议者喊口号的声音够大，可以让你听到，但不会干扰课堂教学，天黑后他们就离开了。
从第一修正案的角度来看，这并没有什么不好。
「但是学生错了！」你很可能会反对。但不法之人也拥有第一修正案赋予的权利。
第一修正案赋予了犯错的权利，因为如果没有，我们就需要任命一个真理仲裁者。这项责任可能落在国会身上，我们不确定是否有人会相信这个过程的结果。
即使我们认为这是个好主意，但真相很少像我们希望的那样简单或二元化，而提炼真相的过程意味着处理最终我们认为是不真实的东西。真理是永无止境的猜测和反驳的过程，逐渐消除虚假，最终达到真理，但永远无法完全达到真理。现代校园活动的多样性反映了对真理在各个可能的领域中的追求，但学校的宗旨仍然是追求真理，而当我们忘记这一点时，最大的错误就开始了。
「但抗议是针对未来的学生的！」你哭了。这很好——学生越早认识到言论自由文化涉及一定程度的不和谐，就越好。那些认为自由需要强加宁静的学生，会期望你以牺牲个人权利为代价来创造这种宁静。如果有人因为这次抗议而决定不去 HypoU，这本身就可能表明他们还没有准备好参与高等教育所要求的那种言论自由文化。
那你该怎么做呢？
您可以尝试直接与抗议者交谈，尽管克里斯塔基斯在耶鲁大学的经历表明，您可能没有与知识上诚实（或能力）的经纪人打交道。您可以向他们发送信件——毕竟您知道他们住在哪里——并在信件中包含表明您的工资符合标准薪酬的数据。您可以制作一个视频，向学生介绍您的一天，让他们知道这份工作并不容易，而且需要做很多工作。大学校长的薪水很高，但他们不是有钱有闲的人。
简而言之，你可以试着教育他们。毕竟，这是一个教育机构，尽管是个想像中的机构。你无法说服所有人，但你可以说服一些人，并向他们介绍一些事实，这些事实可能会让他们在未来质疑自己的立场。即使你只是成功地证明了对方有论点，这也是进步。
第二天：公民抗命
但就我们的假设而言，所有错误的事情都会升级。现在，学生们正在你办公室外面的草坪上扎营。事情会发生多大的变化取决于你的规则。假设现有的「时间、地点和方式」规则并不禁止在户外空间使用帐篷，但要求在晚上拆除帐篷。
如果你不在这里执行这些规则，你就应该撤销它们，因为将来执行这些规则会使该机构面临选择性执行的指控。如果您认为「时间、地点和方式」规则是错误的，那么就改变它们。否则，请提供足够的通知。提供正当程序。并执行规则。
也许一旦被告知露营违反规定，学生们就会说：「喔！我没意识到。那我拿着横幅和帐篷就走吧。明天早上9:15准时见。」当然，为什么不呢？我们生活在一个充满无限可能的世界。
但也有可能有些学生不会合作，此时群众就参与了公民抗命。违反校园规定扎营、占领建筑物或阻塞交通以进行抗议都是公民抗命的形式。
你不是社会变革的总统；你是一所大学的校长。
这有什么改变吗？不，一点儿也不。公民抗命之所以有力量，正是因为它与个人利益有关，你仍然应该执行校园规则。如果他们在第一次询问时不肯让步，那么请再问一次。如果这不起作用，请打开洒水器。如果这不起作用，请通知他们因违反禁止在公共场所露营的规定而举行学生行为听证会的时间。如果这不起作用，请告诉他们执法人员到达并开始逮捕的具体时间。如果警察到达时他们仍在那里，他们应该因非法侵入而被捕。
有些人会感到难过，而其他人则会在社群媒体上将自己的「殉道」视为一种骄傲的象征。被捕对抗议活动有何帮助，是言论自由文化赋予抗议者的一种考量，你不需要对此进行猜测。你不是社会变革的总统；你是一所大学的校长。
这并不是你的工作的结束。您还有另一个接受教育的机会，您可以选择最舒适的任何形式——信件、专栏文章、电视采访、辩论，甚至是强制性的入学指导研讨会。理论上，你可以要求学生完成额外的培训，以避免受到校园规则的惩罚。你的工作是解释为什么言论自由文化不包括违反观点和内容中立的规则。
我们从这一点开始：「文化」一词预设了某种形式的社会，因为要有规范，就必须有社会结构。这些规范必须适应倾听他人和过正常生活的能力，否则社会就会崩溃。如果抗议的方式是为了干扰社会的运转，那么任何重视自我保护的文化，包括言论自由的文化，都必须反对这种抗议方式，无论它表达的是什么观点。站在历史正确的一边只对坚持到现在的社会才有价值。
第三天：机构中立
被赶出营地并没有减缓抗议活动。现在，抗议者呼吁您发表声明，声援他们的目标，确保管理人员获得公平但有限的报酬。
尽管如此，你不应该发表这样的言论。相反，你应该制定一条禁止发表这些言论的规则——制度中立规则。机构中立的理念是，高等教育机构不应该对某些事物采取机构立场，除非这些立场威胁大学的使命或自由探究本身。
从抽象的角度来看，这是一个明智的原则；大学应该是意识形态斗争的场所，而不是斗争的武器。但随着运动采取无限交叉的议程，将其堆叠成一个意识形态的四维立方体，这个问题变得更加紧迫，透过这个四维立方体，你可能会对沙丁鱼进口采取立场，并发现自己对系外行星的森林砍伐并不同情。他们共同形成了一种正统观念，其中的信徒是好人，任何违反信仰任何个别原则的人都是坏人。对于这慷慨的邀请，你的回应应该是拒绝。请注意，管理人员的适当薪酬水平是一个合法且激烈的辩论问题，并且您欢迎任何举办此类辩论、进行任何研究甚至只是就该主题举办论坛的提议。
当你第一次尝试这样做时，你会被指责偏袒，因为 HypoU（与其他大学一样）可能已经对数十个其他有争议的问题公开表态。例如，在哈佛大学采取机构中立政策之前，它与乌克兰人民站在一起，坚持国会应该为无证移民子女提供获得公民身份的途径，并在承诺审查警察如何参与抗议活动时提醒我们黑人的生命很重要。这种愤世嫉俗的态度在哈佛大学身上是有道理的，该校在10月7日事件发生后因与亲巴勒斯坦学生、活动家和教授的立场不太相左而受到批评，之后采取了这项政策，这让前校长拉里·萨默斯感到「幻灭和疏远」。
你必须承担责任，因为这是你的责任（或至少是你的学校应得的）。但如果你采取这项政策并坚持下去，气候就会改善，生活也会变得更轻松。
当然，抗议应该受到保护，但透过辩论和讨论听取人们的意见，并努力学习和成长，可以使大学体验更加强大，并且肯定有助于发现真理。当这种情况没有发生，并且有人抗议时，这也是可以接受的。完美并不是标准，幸运的是，对于你假设的职业生涯来说，标准并没有设定得特别高。
正文二：
Navigating Free Speech at “Hypothetical University”
By Sally Satel, Greg Lukianoff, and Adam Goldstein
May 7, 2025
Sally Satel is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a lecturer at the Yale University School of Medicine. Greg Lukianoff is an attorney, author, and the president and CEO of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE). Adam Goldstein is the vice president of strategic initiatives at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
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As my fellow editors and I were putting the final touches on The Free Inquiry Papers (AEI Press, April 2025), we realized that all the essays we had commissioned were written before the eruption of anti-Semitic pro-Palestinian protests in the spring of 2024. We needed someone with expertise in the exercise of free speech, as it extended beyond the classroom and into the elm-lined quads and campus courtyards to interpret the upheaval. So, we immediately turned to Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), for analysis. His commentary below is an insightful guide on how universities can think about defending the rights of students to protest, protecting Jewish students, and disciplining those who threaten the safety of other students and disturb campus life.
Then, months later, as the book was already in press, the Trump Administration unfurled its campaign to eradicate anti-Semitism and ideological indoctrination in universities by tying federal funding to various demands. In March, the administration moved to cut $400 million in funding from Columbia University unless the school agreed to a set of reforms, including an overhaul of its protest policies, security practices and Middle Eastern studies department. The highest profile intervention was aimed at Harvard University. It included revisions in admissions and disciplinary procedures, culminating in a threat to remove the university’s tax exempt status or risk losing up to $9 billion in federal funding.
On April 22, 2025, more than 150 university and college presidents co-signed a letter condemning the efforts to dictate the policies of private higher education institutions in exchange for federal funding. “As leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies, we speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education,” they wrote. I share their concerns.
My personal addendum is that we mustn’t lose sight of the original provocations that were in place for over a decade – namely, systematic efforts to suppress unpopular scholarship and expression. Even with the current administration’s expansive and, at times, seemingly arbitrary efforts to undo the excesses of the Biden and Obama administrations, the larger goal has timeless merit: to restore academic freedom. – Sally Satel
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Let’s imagine you are the president of “Hypothetical University,” a large private institution in the Northeast. While private institutions are not necessarily restrained by the First Amendment, your institution has long promised students they would have First Amendment rights while they attend. Many courts have enforced promises of free expression as contractual, and in California, a state law prevents colleges from punishing students for speech or conduct that would be protected off campus. Accordingly, HypoU has some legal obligations that limit what actions it may take when there’s unrest on campus. (You will come to find that’s true of the vast majority of higher educational institutions. You could count on one hand the noteworthy schools that have made their reputation on promising less freedom, if you exclude the military academies and highly religious universities.)
Your institution should have rules. The selective enforcement of rules was a major component of the hypocrisy that gave college administrators no moral authority when they needed it. If you persecute professors who use ableist language like “shortsighted” but defend the right to call for the extermination of an ethnic group, you don’t look like someone who cares about free speech; you look like a bigot who plays favorites.
Your rules should be clearly communicated and visibly enforced. Clearly communicated to students in orientation and handbooks, and clearly communicated to campus employees (including law enforcement) in manuals and trainings. Visibly enforced by explicitly defending the speech that falls within them and pursuing the speech that falls outside of them.
In these orientations and trainings, you should train administrators to not police speech or signal political orthodoxies but defend and promote speech and discussion. If you have bias response teams or professors who rationalize things like shout downs and student cancellations, this is the time to start getting rid of them—or at least moving them into positions where they won’t have student contact.
So what are the rules that must be carefully inculcated and respected?
Some of these are mandated by the government and required to remain eligible for student loan funding, such as rules against harassment. Those rules require colleges to limit the harm from conduct that is “so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive, and that so undermines and detracts from the victims’ educational experience, that the victim-students are effectively denied equal access to an institution’s resources and opportunities.”
For example, in October 2023, a Cornell student was arrested for a series of online threats against Jewish students at the school, including threats to slit the throats of the men, sexually assault the women and throw them from a bridge, and “bring an assault rifle to campus and shoot all you pig jews.” The school, unsurprisingly, acted: They called law enforcement, who arrested and charged the student.
But that is an extreme example, and it’s important to note what the rules do not require the college to do to stop harassment: Censor speakers. Your institution is obligated to take action to lessen the adverse effects of the harassment, but the universe of potential options is unlimited; as long as it doesn’t materially disadvantage either party’s ability to receive their education, that meets the obligation. Some administrators have struggled with the idea that the obligation to act imposed by federal regulations does not create an exception to the First Amendment.
It is possible for someone to have a First Amendment right to participate in a protest, while at the same time, the institution has to do something to help a student who feels targeted by that activity.
This is important because, in response to campus protests, the Department of Education has stated that a college still has an obligation to act when no individual actor has engaged in “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive” conduct or speech, but the collective action of a group or groups has created a “severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive”environment. For example, if a Jewish student must pass chanting mobs, biased posters, and burning effigies to get to every class, the school’s obligation to offer aid to the Jewish student does not automatically mean the students who are chanting can be censored. It is possible for someone to have a First Amendment right to participate in a protest, while at the same time, the institution has to do something to help a student who feels targeted by that activity.
Your institution’s guiding star here has to be that no student can be deprived of the value of their educational investment based on an environment toxic toward their race, gender, religion, or national origin or the perception of any of those things. And if a student can reasonably argue that’s the climate, the institution has to respond—but the response doesn’t necessarily have to be punitive or focused on speech.
What other rules should the institution have in place? Presumably, it has “time, place, and manner” restraints on where people can gather, and while generous, they likely prohibit outright living in the outdoor common spaces. There should also be rules against all forms of the “heckler’s veto,” including shouting down or blocking speakers or other organized actions designed to frustrate the ability to engage in peaceful discussion and debate, especially between people with strong opposing viewpoints. FIRE’s College Free Speech Rankings Survey shows that students are becoming increasingly comfortable using their actions to shut down speech. In the 2024 rankings, 45 percent of students said it was at least rarely OK to block other students from attending a speech; a year prior, that was 37 percent. In 2024, 27 percent said violence was at least rarely acceptable to stop a speaker; a year prior, it was 20 percent.
Remember, all these rules have to be viewpoint and content neutral. Viewpoint neutral means the rule doesn’t punish some viewpoints more than others; content neutral means the rule doesn’t discriminate among issues. In a First Amendment context, viewpoint discrimination is outright unconstitutional, and content discrimination is presumptively unconstitutional and requires strict scrutiny from a court, generally meaning a loss for the institution. And in a free speech cultural context, making rules based on someone’s ideas undermines the goal of encouraging the expression of those ideas.
Day One
Imagine that students have started to protest on your campus. Let’s assume they’re protesting you because they think your salary is too high, and they want to take two-thirds of your salary and invest it in food delivery for the protesters.
You realize, of course, that this is untrue; your imaginary salary is entirely in line with both averages across institutions and the value you bring to HypoU. But they’re yelling at you, nonetheless.
A hundred protesters are on the open lawn outside your office, holding signs that read: “TUITION HIKES FOR PAY SPIKES,” “EDUCATION OVER COMPENSATION,” and “OUR DEBT, YOUR PROFIT.”
The First Amendment includes the right to be wrong, because if it didn’t, we’d need to appoint an arbiter of truth.
They chant: “Fund our future, not your salary!” From the window, you see curious families on a campus visit for prospective students looking over at the crowd, worried. The protesters chant loudly enough for you to hear but not loudly enough to interfere with classes, and they leave when it gets dark.
From a First Amendment standpoint, nothing’s wrong here.
“But the students are wrong!” you might well object. But wrong people have First Amendment rights too.
The First Amendment includes the right to be wrong, because if it didn’t, we’d need to appoint an arbiter of truth. That duty would probably fall to Congress, and we’re not sure any of us would trust the result of that process.
Even if we thought that was a good idea, truth is rarely as simple or as binary as we would like, and the process of refining truth means processing through what, eventually, we see as untruth. Truth is a never-ending process of conjecture and refutation, chipping away at falsity to zero in on, but never quite reach, the truth. The diversity of activity on a modern campus reflects the pursuit of truth down every possible corridor, but the institution’s purpose remains the pursuit of truth, and the biggest mistakes begin when we forget that.
“But the protests are in view of the prospective students!” you cry. That’s good—the sooner students understand that a free speech culture involves some amount of discord, the better. Students who come to believe that freedom requires an imposed tranquility are the kind who will expect you to create that tranquility at the expense of individual rights. If someone decides not to go to HypoU based on this protest, that alone might be a sign they aren’t ready to participate in the kind of free speech culture that higher education requires.
So what do you do?
You could try talking to the protesters directly, although the Christakises’ experience at Yalesuggests there’s a chance you aren’t dealing with intellectually honest (or capable) brokers. You could send letters to them—you know where they live, after all—and include in those letters data indicating your salary is in line with standard compensation. You could make a video walking students through your day, showing them that the job isn’t easy and involves a lot of work. College presidents are well compensated, but they aren’t the idle rich.
In short, you can try educating them. This is an educational institution, after all, albeit an imaginary one. You won’t convince all of them, but you’ll convince some and introduce all of them to facts that could lead them to question their position in the future. Even if you only succeed in demonstrating that there’s an argument on the other side, that’s progress.
Day Two: Civil Disobedience
But for our hypothetical’s sake, all the wrong things escalate. Now, the students are encamped on the lawn outside your office. How much that changes things depends on your rules. Let’s assume the existing “time, place, and manner” rules don’t prohibit using tents in outdoor spaces but require them to be removed at night.
If you don’t enforce the rules here, you should rescind them, because enforcing them in the future opens the institution to accusations of selective enforcement. If you’ve decided the “time, place, and manner” rules were wrong, then change them. Otherwise, provide adequate notice. Provide due process. And enforce the rules.
Maybe once they’re told that encampments break the rules, the students will say, “Oh! I didn’t realize that. Let me take my banner and my tent, and I’ll just be off, then. See you tomorrow, 9:15 a.m. sharp.” Sure, why not? We live in a world of infinite possibility.
But it’s also possible that some students will not cooperate, and at this point, the crowd is involved in civil disobedience. Erecting encampments contrary to campus rules, occupying a building, or blocking traffic as part of a protest are all forms of civil disobedience.
You’re not the president of social change; you’re the president of a university.
Does that change anything? No, not in the slightest. Civil disobedience is powerful precisely because there are personal stakes to it, and you should still enforce the campus rules. If they won’t move the first time you ask, then ask again. If that doesn’t work, turn the sprinklers on. If that doesn’t work, notify them of the time of their student conduct hearings for breaking the rule against camping in public spaces. If that doesn’t work, tell them the exact time law enforcement will show up to start arrests. And if they’re still there when the police arrive, they should be arrested for trespassing.
Some will be upset, and others will wear their “martyrdom” as a badge of pride on social media. How being arrested helps the cause is a calculus that a free speech culture puts in the hands of the protester, and you don’t have to second-guess that. You’re not the president of social change; you’re the president of a university.
That isn’t the end of your work. You have another opportunity for education, in whatever format you’re most comfortable with—letters, op-eds, television interviews, debates, or even mandatory orientation seminars. You could, in theory, require students to complete additional training to avoid being punished under campus rules. Your job is to explain why a free speech culture doesn’t include violating viewpoint- and content-neutral rules.
We’d start with this: The word “culture” presupposes a society of some form, because to have norms, you have to have a social structure. And those norms have to accommodate the ability to hear other people and live normal lives, or else the society will collapse. If the method of a protest is to interfere with the operation of society, then any culture that values self-preservation, including a free speech culture, has to oppose that method of protest, no matter what viewpoint it expresses. Being on the right side of history is valuable only to societies that make it to the present.
Day Three: Institutional Neutrality
Having been removed from their encampment hasn’t slowed the protests. And now, protesters are calling on you to make a statement of solidarity with their goals of ensuring fair but limited compensation for administrators.
Nevertheless, you shouldn’t make that statement. Instead, you should have a rule against making these statements—an institutional neutrality rule. Institutional neutrality is the idea that higher education institutions should not take institutional positions on things unless they threaten the university’s mission or free inquiry itself.
It’s a wise principle in the abstract; universities should be the venue for ideological fights, not weapons in that fight. But it’s become far more urgent as movements adopt infinitely intersectional agendas, stacked on each other into an ideological tesseract through which you might adopt a position on sardine imports and come to discover you’re unsympathetic to the deforestation of exoplanets. Together, they form an orthodoxy in which the adherents are the Good People and anyone who violates any individual tenet of the faith is a Bad Person. Your response to this generous invitation should be to decline. Note that the appropriate level of compensation for administrators is a matter of legitimate and robust debate and that you would welcome any proposals to host such a debate, perform any research, or even just hold a forum on the topic.
The first time you attempt this, you will be accused of favoritism because HypoU (like every other university) has probably taken public positions on dozens of other debated issues. Before Harvard adopted its institutional neutrality policy, for example, it stood with the people of Ukraine, insisted Congress should make a pathway to citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants, and reminded us that black lives matter when promising to review how police attend protests. And that cynicism is justified in Harvard’s case, which adopted its policy after being criticized for not quite contradicting pro-Palestinian students, activists, and professors in the immediate wake of October 7, in a way that left former institution president Larry Summers feeling “disillusioned and alienated.”
You need to take your lumps here because you (or at least, your school) earned them. But if you adopt this policy and stick to it, the climate will improve, and life will become much easier.
Protest should be protected, of course, but hearing people out through debate and discussion, and trying to learn and grow, can make for an even more powerful collegiate experience and certainly contributes to the discovery of truth. And when that doesn’t happen, and there’s a protest, that’s OK too. Perfection is not the standard, and fortunately for your hypothetical career, the bar has not been set exceptionally high.
来源：非 常道