The following is a guest contribution and reflects the authors' views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.
The freedom of each Princeton faculty member to speak candidly on all manner of issues is indispensable. If faculty cannot express a broad range of intellectual views, including controversial ones, then the University’s mission to further human knowledge and educate students to become discerning, thoughtful citizens cannot be fully realized.
That is why we are supporting a proposal to modify the Rules & Procedures of the Faculty at Princeton to limit faculty meeting votes to matters directly concerning University governance. By extension, this measure would preclude votes that force faculty to take stances on political issues that lie outside of the faculty’s jurisdiction. We urge all our colleagues to vote in favor of this measure at the upcoming faculty meeting on Oct. 21.
It may seem counterintuitive that a measure curtailing a form of collective political expression would simultaneously protect academic freedom. It is therefore important to explain our rationale.
First, we believe every member of Princeton’s faculty should be free to express political opinions, both in their official capacity and in their private speech. Likewise, if a group of faculty members — or other members of our community — seeks to collectively express a shared opinion, we support their right to do so.
However, we object to efforts by any subset of the faculty to speak for all of us. We must all have the freedom to speak for ourselves.
While faculty may entrust a small number of colleagues to vote on routine academic matters, they should not be authorized to make moral or political pronouncements on behalf of the entire faculty. We oppose faculty meetings being used as a political arena where colleagues must either engage in potentially rancorous opposition or risk a false sense of consensus on otherwise controversial questions.
It is not difficult to identify a range of social or political debates that members of our campus community might wish to make the subject of so-called “sense of the faculty” votes in a bid to enlist the University’s stature in support of a particular viewpoint. From threats to democracy, to violent conflict, to political corruption, world events will always present issues that rouse our conscience and prompt passionate responses. But adopting “official” faculty positions on public controversies undermines freedom and diversity of opinion in several ways.
When “the faculty” are conscripted to speak in one voice about an issue, dissenting opinions are discouraged, and our truth-seeking mission is compromised. Faculty and University relations are marked by extreme power imbalances, making it much harder for some to express disagreement. Political votes taken at faculty meetings are especially likely to create an intimidating environment for junior faculty and students who may feel coerced into silence if senior faculty members embrace official stances that are at odds with their own beliefs.
Moreover, attempts to gauge faculty opinion on matters normally outside faculty jurisdiction through “sense of the faculty” votes are bound to give a false impression. The outcome of these votes depends on the typically small number of faculty who happen to attend a given meeting. Princeton’s rules require that only 5 percent of the faculty (or 58 people this academic year) be present to achieve quorum. This means 30 faculty members could pass a motion that purports to express the political views of over a thousand. And even among those who are present, some faculty members may be attending for the purpose of regular University business, but be placed in the position of having to take a stance on issues they have not considered deeply or that lie outside their expertise.
These votes will therefore not be an accurate representation of faculty opinion. But that distinction is unlikely to be appreciated in resulting media coverage. “Princeton Faculty Endorse X” is the level of nuance we should expect.
If such votes become normalized, even their omission from meeting agendas could prove disruptive. There are many pressing political and moral concerns in the world. Will the faculty register opinions on all of them? If not, the mere absence of a vote on a given issue could be read as indifference and elicit justified condemnation from various interest groups.
There is also evidence that such political statements do not have their intended persuasive effect, but do harm the reputation of academic institutions. For example, a recent study measured the impact of the journal Nature’s decision to endorse Joe Biden for president in 2020. The study found “little evidence that the endorsement changed views about Biden and Trump” overall, but among Trump supporters, those exposed to the endorsement in a randomized controlled trial showed lower levels of trust in Nature — as well as in scientists generally — and a diminished demand for information related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In other words, by taking an unprecedented partisan political stance, however well intentioned, Nature likely hurt its credibility, undermined its mission, and gained nothing in return.
Princeton should expect similar backlash if we begin using faculty meetings to cast divisive votes on contested political issues with no direct bearing on our educational mission. Such votes will discourage the expression of dissenting views on campus, give the false impression of uniform opinion, and tarnish the University’s reputation, all while doing little or nothing to impact the political matters that motivate such motions in the first place.
Let us reserve faculty meetings for their intended purpose: governing the University. By doing so, we will further our core mission — the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge — by protecting the right of every member of Princeton’s campus to speak for themselves.
Leora Batnitzky is the Ronald O. Perelman Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Religion. She can be reached at batnitzk[at]princeton.edu. Emmanuel Bourbouhakis is an Associate Professor of Classics & Hellenic Studies. He can be reached at ebourbou[at]princeton.edu. Flora Champy is an Associate Professor of French in the Department of French and Italian. She can be reached at fchampy[at]princeton.edu. Eve Krakowski is an Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies & Judaic Studies. She can be reached at eve.krakowski[at]princeton.edu. Sanjeev Kulkarni is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Operations Research and Financial Engineering. He can be reached at kulkarni[at]princeton.edu. Stephen Macedo is the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values. He can be reached at macedo[at]princeton.edu. Jonathan Mummolo is an Associate Professor of Politics and Public Affairs. He can be reached at jmummolo[at]princeton.edu.
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