A troubling pattern has emerged on American campuses: Administrators misapplying institutional neutrality policies in ways that silence the very expression the policies were designed to protect.
Institutional neutrality as a guiding principle for American universities appears to be undergoing a renaissance. Leading universities like Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford and Vanderbilt Universities have lately embraced versions of it. The core idea is that universities should not take public positions on partisan or controversial issues unless there is a direct and palpable impact on the university and its students, staff and faculty. Institutional neutrality has genuine value, but its success depends entirely on clarity about who is actually speaking for the institution.
Recent events suggest such clarity is often lacking. At Cape Fear Community College, officials demanded a “No Kings” slogan be painted over on a student theater set. At the University of Utah, a student organizer was told to scrub language about climate change from an Earth Day flier. At Purdue University, the institution severed ties with its student newspaper. In each case, administrators invoked neutrality to justify student censorship. And in each case, administrators misunderstood what neutrality governs.
