Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion 20240703

Watch them all online anytime at booktv. Org. You can also find us on twitter, facebook and youtube at booktv. Journalists and academic participate in a Panel Discussion on free speech and due process on college and University Campuses. The event from the National Press club is about an hour and ten minutes. [inaudible conversations] good morning, everyone. Welcome Tour Presentation on the unsocial network, how administrators hijacked the College Experience. This point presentation is organized by de lafayette group, with support from acta, the American Council of trustees and alumni, campus reform and my organization, the foundation for individual rights and expression. Im bob cornrevere, chief counsel at fire, and just a little bit about where i come from. Fire has fought for free speech and due process in Higher Education for the past 25 years. In the last few weeks and it our mission to move the on just free speech on College Campus issues to free speech in society in general. But in the years that weve been addressing these questions, there is been a common theme, and one thing that we found is that campus freedom has declined in direct proportion to the rise of the administrative class on University Campuses. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in the declaration of independence, men are endowed by their creator, and women, with certain unalienable rights here and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But increasingly it seems that todays College Campuses are where these principles go to die, particularly the pursuit of happiness part and this part of what we are going to be talking about today. I mentioned one example of this in my book, and im mentioning this only because my Publisher Cambridge University press told me never to pass an opportunity to plug your book. So in the mind of the sensor and in the eye of the beholder, one example i mentioned in passing, it is an incident at 2017 at the American University where the school did decline to approve a fundraiser that was proposed by the Sigma Alpha Mu Fraternity entitled bad mitten and it was a play on hiphop song but the administrators claim that this was insensitive appropriation. And as assistant director of fraternity and sortie life wrote, i want to continue to encourage a culture of controversy prevention among great groups, and suggested staying away from any themes that involve gender, culture, or sexuality for titles. Apparently feeling sufficiently empowered, the fraternity canceled the event. These are the kinds of things that were seeing increasingly on University Campuses. And thats the theme that we are going to explore this morning, the rise of bureaucracy on University Campuses tends to be antithetical to the values of Free Expression, due process, and also fun. So this morning we have a terrific panel of speakers to address those issues. I will introduce a and then we will get into it. First let i me introduce Ginevra Davis who is a 2022 stanford graduate you convert to a former reporter stanford review. She is currently a writer at palladium magazine where she wrote a pathbreaking article that has engendered a lot of conversation called stanfords war on social life. Next we have francesca block was a 2022 graduate off Princeton University and she was also associate podcast editor at the daily princetonian. She is reporter for the Des Moines Register and covers breaking news on events like nikki haley 2024 president ial bid and as a writer for the free press, and her article on the same issues is stanfords war against its own students. Now as a scent will be talking about these issues in general but we will also focus in particular given these panelists on whats going on at stanford. Next we have Zachary Marshall who is professor of university of kentucky as well as editor in chief of the Leadership Institute scalpel reform. He and his team campus reform. Reform. Break is the Higher Education and this series academically speaking reveals of radical ideas originating in academia affect americans daily lives. And finally we have dr. Steve mcguire. Dr. Maguire is the paul and karen leavy fellow campus reform at the American Council of trustees and alumni where he writes podcast and speaks on free speech and Academic Freedom in the context of contemporary campus issues. Also assist with acta and responses, reports at initiatives, priests was a director of the Matthew J Ryan center for the study of free institutions and the public good, and associate teaching professor in the augustine and cultural Seminar Program at philadelphia university. Now with that lets get into it. I want to take this in three parts and then we will get to questions from the audience. First, the general atmosphere on campus, the new Higher Education experience. We would like to explore that a little bit. So let me ask the panelists, and i will start with ginevra. What challenges in terms of due process and freedom of speech Free Associations are students facing these days . But thank you for having me. I think one of the things that really motivated me to write the article that i did about how sort of stanford and menstruation was different social groups on campus was that i noticed how a lot of students were internalizing kind of the result of the bureaucracy as failures of their College Experience,ge so stanford was in contact. Its a very Diverse School and very competitive school. You have kids are coming in from athletes, coming in from all over the country, kids from a lot of different socioeconomic brackets. Its more than like harvard and princeton oron yale or become Traditional Ivy League schools, really point of the kinds of kids. Historically stanfords has this patchwork of social groups that cover each type of person that comes on campus. So you have fraternity life, sorority life, get the coop experience, you have ethnic themed houses that cover different subgroups like french, german, italian and also hispanic house and blackouts. The result of these talking to alumni was every student would find a subgroup that set the identity on campus and build what were very divergent that all very rich in meaningful College Experiences in the subgroups. What was happening at stanford is the administration was for an arbitrary reason slowly chipping away at each one of these groups for various reasons. You had like a fraternity with the incident at the party, no more fraternity and they replaced the fraternity houseve which it served as a Cultural Center for certain kind of person with a generic house that would house like a mix of students who had nothing in common. When you don this again and agan and again and again, you go down for may be like 30 to 50 social groups on campus to like ten. Everyone else was not in one of these specialized social groups gets sort of pushed into this generic category of notin being able to find connections on campus. You live in isolated houses and farflung places around school. So instead of recognizing this as an administrative issue where students associate with being suppressed by the administration where you had a social group that was supposed to exist to serve a certain kind of student and it was being destroyed, you might kids would come in really, really struggle to find the group because the group that had been created for that type of person at stanford had been destroyed and then blame it on some sort of failure, like im having a bad politics experience, im not having enough fun, im not making friends, and lonely. These are objectiveec experienc, youre 18, 19, nowhere to go out at night, no community, feel surrounded by people different from you come you dont have that foothold and then kids would become very lonely and depressed. Youd see it in their body language and mannerisms a lot of them which stanford has developed of weird culture kids going with him campus all the time, that spending time at school, sort of detaching from the school. What a really want to shed light on was how when you inhibit students freedom for expression it has these devastating selfesteem issues whether start toti feel like we have this myth the American College experience and its this place response. Youre on identity and when you inhibit peoples ability to experiment and also to find people like themselves, it inhibits at identity because they dont learn where do i fit to get the message i dont fit in on the campus so i dont fit in anywhere and that is a damaging thing to tell young people. I do think when people talk about freedom of expression theres always this emphasis on what are you allowed to say class, what are you allowed to say in a talk, and is very formal settings . What were seeing with the administrativeg state actually n evening students ability to express themselves in termss of finding the identity and private spaces. That was what i wanted to shine some light on. Thats also what you see with like frannie where when you punish student. Throwing parties you cut down the number of parties in campus, kids feel like they cant go to party, the kepler, can explore, get one of themselves or and that produces a very repressed inhibited and self explored student body. Theres been a lot of writing of the high levels of depression among students currently college age. So you are tracing it to the social environment on campus and restrictions on that. Has that been your experience . . When campus was fun how would you describe this today . s detailing what happened at stanford, my look was more the perspective of due process and through the own process and the think has a profound impact so i wrote a story on stanford students and he is the president of virginity for a party and the university investigated for allegedly serving alcohol to at least one person under the age of 21. The university hired outside counsel to conduct the investigation but the student who is in my place so we working on fraternitys defense. He was really struggling about life in college and his work was finishing and had to drop out as a result. There was a huge impact and to get more insight, there are two types of investigations that can be done. Over 400 students under these two laws. 97 of those investigations were about undercooked or they were cheating investigations. What happens is of the university of six months to conduct an investigation before you decide whether or not to file formal charges after that six month deadline the University Filed 201 formal charges that year. Out of those 201 students who were formally charged, only five were found not guilty. So this process that i investigated, what many of my people told and what this data shows is theres this process stacked against the students pick the university inside and outside counsel risk students to have representation of their own and lest they can afford to go get somebody else to help them through this process. It can take months, they can take so much physical energy, mental energy, focus them away for the classes, wherefrom social experience at college at all. Many of the courses i spoke to both students and alumni are saying they dont want universities to make it easier for students to cheat theyre not trying to create an environment which is easy to cheat and cheating is rapid of the elves whatever process thats fair to students and also whatever process in which students feel like they are respected and appreciated. They are presumed innocent before proven guilty. These basic values after process are completely thrown out the window Distribution System implemented by the University Expert thank you. I want to make this more of a conversation among the panelists so let me bring dr. Marschall and dr. Mcguire into the spirit let me ask each of you, is this discussion of whats going on currently on campus by people who are there e recently that i was consistent with what you have seen . And if so, if or if not, hows it . Yeah, there were, the problem in my opinion this phenomenon we have a cadre of zealous bureaucrats in the deans office, in the offices that come up with every social crisis and demonstration that reads other culture wars can contribute you see that being reflected in the personnel that is being created on College Campuses here in the reason that youre seeing the lack of due process or a kind of marginalization or limitation of violent is because these bureaucrats are the beneficiaries of spending that never goes down even when you have public universities, having to cut back especially post covid. The money and resources they get are far disproportionate to the more poor academic subjects. With those resources and infrastructure, the problem becomes if theyre trying to manage interdiction pick the same thing universities are treating students like their children and through the lowering of academic standards and through positions like chief experience officer which is something that the university of utah is posting for this year, trying to hide what i looked into it. I dont see the difference between that job and a cruise director on the cruise ship. But thenceforth one side of the contradiction with the other side is the also the same time see them as children they require them to be perfected molded adults. You have response teams, speech codes that punish penalize and seek out students if they make the tiniest infraction, the tiniest mistake. The same time youre treating 18yearolds like children you are also not giving them the room in time for them to grow into adulthood which is what college was supposed to be about, and in that messy state experience was the fun sport i agree with zach the entrance of the general picture overall in Higher Education what we see is costs are going up while the quality of education freedom to express yourself and intellectual diversity are all going down. In terms of quality of education just for example, if you look at active, but with project which evaluates the core requirements, stanford get a d. Thats, tickets, many of our elite institution for the donation of the students graduating from the institutions, met with a kind of wellrounded robust education you would want somebody to after entrance of Free Expression on campus i find stories from francesca and ginevra, its shocking but not surprising is how i will put it. The bureaucrats are one of the chief problems in the ratchet goes in one direction. They just keep growing. They multiply. Work for themselves. When you dont have enough of the real work to do things that other things to do. I think of things like the elimination of harmful Language Initiative at stanford where they wanted to outlaw the use of all sorts of language that people deemed offensive. Maybe they should have fewer people on staff who are attending to actual idea issues and that they wont have time to read about the kind of language people using. In terms of the Student Experience that bureaucrats, these are often people who have quite a bit of contact with students your First Contact h students to think about new Student Orientation students are getting their first ascent of what is going to like on campus, whats the culture, what are the expectations. They have these programs that are run by nonstructural staff get a lot of these people are totally in the tank for things like diversity equity and inclusion. They want to control how people think. They are coddling students enter the students pick up on that. I think to some degree they have this influence in students were students themselves start to think in these terms so fire wednesdays campus of research service. We set stanford about 60 of students report censoring themselves at least occasionally. You look at on the other hand, they are also inclined to send to others or to shut down speech that they dont like. Where our Students Learning this behavior . People are not naturally born thinking this way. They pick it up somewhere. I think the bureaucrats are a large problem. They are growing and they really get the hooks in the students. Ive heard them say before at other institutions they really think of themselves as the primary educators of the students but let me ask you about that because its been true for a number of years on many campuses the number of administrators outnumber faculty. On some campuses there are as many administrators as to our students or more. Whats your sense of the numbers of those kinds of questions . I mean, at stanford they have a bureaucrat for every two students. Thats double the average of other r1 institutions where they have a bureaucrat for every four students the average across higher ed is at one bureaucrat for every ten students. Which is already insanely high, in my view. Then you look at these elite institutions they are even worse than stanford is at the very top. Compared to faculty where you maybe have one faculty member for every 16, 20, 30 students. So this way my bureaucrats oncampus than our faculty members did you hear people say things like its almost like theres a personal butler for every student on campus. Its not far from true. Wouldnt be bad to have a personal butler. Let me ask you, is that true in your experience as well . Who are the worst offenders in this regard . The worst offenders as far as the bureaucrats are the, what i see its like if you want to look at the offices or any other type of bureaucrat that couldve been it was done in a more responsible economical and institution, Human Resources division pick you almost have to justify your own paid by the number of students you persecutor we see a number of students get in trouble for things that dont warrant that kind of infraction that could be from how fraternities might advertise their parties before covid there was a frat that use politically incorrect language that wasnt exactly respectful but it wasnt illegal. It wasnt harmful. They were all suspended until someone in the Bureaucratic Administration found out that it was constitutionally protected speech, that we have no standing to the subject think about the man hours that go into these almost like rabbit holes when you look for students who maybe dont always act the way they should if they were fully informed adults, think about how much time is wasted on track to persecute them rather than trying to help them or make sure theyre having a formative experience. You mention the response to covert. Let me ask for and what an francesca about of you two attended college during the covert years which is for the rest of us almost impossible to imagine going to college during that kind of experience. How did it affect you and how does it tie into these issues . So its actually, covid was a wakeup call and transiting significant event experience in my time at stanford. One of the reason i was inspired to write this piece isnt doingg covid a lot of good start like living together in houses offcampus and i was living in a group house with a bunch of kids who were like two or three years older and they had friends who were alumni and the alumni committee. Previous id only known kids in my own grades like most kids at stanford are there asking e questions like so do you do exotic erotic . Like is a seminaked party stanford used to do. Do do full nude on the quad . You have particular nouns, all these things . No, no, no there really reframed my College Experience being very abnormal witches everyone thinks the College Experience is normal, 18 go to a new school you have no sense of the moors and i think that something these schools take advantage of a lot is the kids took over so fast that as long as you can like make a change and implement it to be clean before freshman class they will have the idea this is what college is. This is what stanford princeton whatever school youre going to is like. That was a lick of cult and also the experience of living offcampus by myself being able to go to my own social events. That felt much ironically for your even under lockdown than the sort of very restrictive experience on campus to what they did at stanford is while students were offcampus for covid and going to get this completely clean slate of people coming back with little institutional experience, the use that as an opportunity to make very, very unpopular changes at stanford the houses monopoly pretty controversial 50 of the class rushed but it was not lightly discussed and only 20 of the class was in greek life because there were not that many greek houses the they had these theme houses that were like french italian german slavic cows and they would host sort of fancy dinner party type events for upperclassman that was very like aboveboard and respectful and the kind of engagement you would like on the College Campus to universally popular, number one right College Housing not have gone over locally to try to get rid of these. When the kids were offcampus with a slash of those and rename those to the addresses. They also got rid of outdoor house on i think the quote was that was upholding harmful standards of outdoor kids in america which is one of the finest sentences ive ever read. Which have been the second Stanford Institution very representative, particular types of stanford students the valves of the university. They got rid of that. I think, for a lot of these schools was an opportunity for them to show their true colors where when they have a blank slate to experiment with the new group of students who were not going to complain because significant expectations of living in french house, whatever they did and what does work, were able to come back and if interesting for me as a freshman i had been getting the sort of side comments and lectures from underclassmen when i would be like im going to party at 550 may be like thats not 550, thats a fraternity. With distant distantt thats what they told me, shut up. I found myself in a position of giving those in talks to younger students were i would be like that house used to be the italian house and it was so fun every pizza night in the south who used to do, sophomores and juniors, they would be like that sounds really fun, whatever the they never experience that. Dont have those times. For a lot of schools in the guise of cold restrictions but also getting the fresh batch of students who did have expectations and they give lower expectations because they were coming from their parents houses and grateful to be allcaps\all caps. It was an opportunity to further degrade the experience and yeah, just sort of further care at things that otherwise might have been controversial without the object of students protesting and completing a potential organizing. Francesca did you have a similar experience at princeton . I did watch my College Experience to totally transform before my own eyes but i came in 2018 and left in 2022 part when that it felt like a very different place. It still felt like college commencing the College Experience is totally gone especially during the covid 19 pandemic when princeton did bring students back on the campus you did see the administration expand and their influence and everything aspect of student life even more so than they had before. I do think it was a Good Opportunity for them to do that. Things were so tensed on campus that kids would barely leave the room pic you are not allowed to have more than two people in your own room 50 readily massed outside, so many rules in the name of Public Health on campus but i saw students, for example, one of my friends is having a picnic with somebody in one of the quads and somebody reported that there was an anonymous reporting system picked somebody reported inviting a picnic that there were at the mast and they were to close outside together he was investigated for that that person he was picnicking with was his roommate. There in the room together without the masks. We did see incidences like that regularly felt the president of the administration and everything that you did everything for me talk about mental health, this idea of constantly having to think and evaluate every decision you make on a College Campus about whether or not that will get you into trouble. Think about how emotionally taxing that is just data to estimate 18, 19, 20yearold plaintiff figure at your own life, finisher problems that before class but it is a lot for students to have to do with and think about and also think just potential simple mistake could impact the rest of their lives. Thats really scary for young kid who is just going to college here. It doesnt sound like college to me that we were quite a bit about stanford so far because of your work on the plate he met po on i want to focus more on that in the second and really just ask how do we know stanford hates fun . Author that open to whoever who would care to answer. For me it was stanford hates fun movement. I think, i never said explicit like stanford hates fun or stanford, i never use that language but it was more like almost an ode to find it i was trying to be entered bring fine back as a value for what i found super fascinating is i alluded to this earlier was that whenever the others expected it to be very, very, very unpopular because it was not considered appropriate at the time on campus. Even if you were involved with greek life or were involved in one of these remaining more like exclusive social spaces, you could kind of go to it and you could have fun but you werent supposed to defend the institution as being valuable. You had this weird dichotomy where students were incredibly stressed because the divergence between the capitalist experience and being in one of these groups and not was so drastic because there was so little social safety net that we are stressed whether or not they would be able to live in a house with other kids their age or put into this scary place invoking bureaucratic housing which is what happened at stanford if you dont sort of get into one of the remaining social institutions. I wanted to kind of try to write a defense of the specific social groups and avenues to operate but i started to see very public is never anyone argue before. When peace and then when the piece came out it resonated so much and ant all these notes from students and alumni that really from existing students e i found the most striking talking about how theyt also felt their experience had been degraded and thatt what are the just found institutions valuable or the word havee fun experiences. And so for me that was really striking because i, i posit students did seem to like these things and they didnt have the would talk about specific language they had so many words to describe the various ways these institutions were iniquitous and none to describe the benefits that student could get from a hyper specific social group. I think saying how it was very instructive as a writer and journalist its like to see how people can having this experience without the ability to articulate without having that specific language. In terms of how to know stanford hates fun, when you save people come up saying yes, this is exactly how i feel. I hadnt been to look finger what was. It hasnt really vindicating what is time to say in this hit a note with a large percentage of the population. So looking at the time in between the bureaucratic mind and Free Expression, wasnt the student who perform as the mascot for stanford suspended for holding up a sign the said stanford hates fun . Yes. What i find i wanted was stanford is they are so interested in the image, very imageconscious schooll and i think the optics of the mascot, handing a mask of her saying hates fun obviously is not going to go over very well but the scene committed to doing that. That again i think a question i circle back to is some of the stuff is why . I understand the urge to minimize liability and minimize risk on campus m but i think for all of these schools to isolate on the strength of the reputation, i dont understand first whether trying to destroy many other traditions that brought students to stanford in a Competitive Edge over consumer schools that did have the same reputation for being fun for faltering and it also why after it has been a pretty significant plate of press calling out these actions they are really double down exceptik a couple sort of highlevel statements that theyre going to lie, started like a bureaucratic office to study like fun to Student Experience because the ministry of foreign oncampus. I honestly do not have an answer for, its gone it seems like this kind of cyclical thing with the cut on this mission and now they dont want to admit theyre wrong and he cant stop. If other administrative priority we are not privy to but yeah, i really that to me particularly seems like a very obvious pr misstep on the sienna dont know why they would do that. They talked about things like surveillance being afraid to speak, you make a mistake that will ruin your whole life, the idea of Harm Reduction or that people are perpetuating harm by the language they use. This is exact thing we hear about in the Free Expression space inpa general. The stanford hates fun, the bureaucratic and student life, you can see how that is affecting academic life at the institution as well. Just in the past year stanford hosted a conference that could got quite a deal of press on Academic Freedom last fall and other faculty protested there were even holding this conference. Then in december for stories about the elimination of harm harmful language initial start to blow. T then people start paying attention to the protected identity harm reporting system which is essentially a Bias Response Team that allows for anonymous reporting of people. They say its not going to be an investigation, that participation is voluntary, but whats happening behind the scenes . Pe to people on campus know whos involved in the incident . How strong is the invitation to purchase . Are there other ways that one might face consequences even if not officially . Of course most people will be familiar with the shout down of judge duncan at Stanford Law School where one of the administrators the associate dean for dei intervened and asked some infamously now, is the juice worth the squeeze . Is your Free Expression worth the harm that you are causing my being here. In terms of the overall portrait that you get lucky and stanford is that there is an extreme degree of desire to sort of control and police what people say, the way that people think. This is this is a broad pn Higher Education. Stanford stands out in a bad way in the last year and thats unfortunate because stanford is obviously one of our most elite institutions in this country and it hasas an opportunity to set patterns, to be a leader. Other institutions will look to what places p like stanford or princeton do and they want to be like that. If this is what they see stanford doing is it any surprise we see other institutions all across the country doing the same kind of thing . Lets everyone think weise spend our entire time topic on stanford at least in the shout down of judge duncan, the school to its credit the president and dean of the law school to apologize and openly said that the students needed to have mandatory education on what freedom of expression means, and the dean that would be sort of an online h. R. Style video training the students didnt have to participate in. Right but the dean who did interrupt judge duncan with her own speech was ultimately suspended. Dr. Marschall, where would you place stanford among universities that you survey, that youve observe . Are they test case for the rest of the country . Are the leading the pack or are they pretty typically . It is definitely f the most egregious most public most egregious f universe where this for as an example of whats going on in Higher Education but i dont think whats going on in college and universities is a class phenomenon. Its happening across the board, and to me the problem is you can can almost see the problem playing out when you go be on greek life on campus and go to student clubs and organizations, and you can see how someone at 18 going to that process winds up in that lecture hall where they shut down judge duncan and was supported by dean steinback. Fun is being politicize. What a mean is you see disproportionate almost unanimously at state schools, at small private liberalal arts colleges, at big elite universities its much easier for students, clubs and organizations whos are registerd to a to hold bands for host speakers. The conservative clubs have to paylu security fees, liberal organizations dont. Conservative clubs get canceled for get told to go offcampus thicket denied funding. Not only that but you also need a faculty advisor to be able to have, to register to do a club and only register as an organizations get access and eligibility funding spaces on campus and the resources that those organizations outlined with the prevailing orthodoxy on campus get relatively easily. There are student organizations like at miamidade college, university ofei arkansas and elsewhere across the country where they have conservative bent and they cannot form officially because no faculty member will bety there advisor. Faculty members get pressure on their colleagues and from these bureaucrats we are talking about. What happens is you have these 22yearolds by the time they graduate they graduate and the think im entitled if i am part of the leftist politics that aligns with these dei t bureaucrats that people like me get our spaces, we get to protest, we get to hold our event and have voices heard. These other people dont. You have the same kind of like a fund, lack of Free Association on the right but across the board which he sees people whether its left or right they dont learn how to tolerate difference come they dont know how to learn from others and dont know how to learn how to think. When you get into that space with judge duncan you have people that never learn to think critically in debate. You have people to learn how to shout and to ground someone out there gete people like the dei dean got suspended enabling that behavior. Where do we go from here . I take, again taking for an example of stanford where the dean was ultimately suspended, is that a countertrend in a positive direction . Gc more of that happening or what is the course where following . What should we do w now . I see the trend, to me it mimics a trickle down so were seeing about a d good positive changes happening at the trustee level, happening at the administrator level but its not making an effect on the daytoday lives of students whether ten the classroom or in the general campuss experience. At chapel hill i think is a bellwether institution and is probably what happens theres probably indicative of what happens elsewhere. So ever since of you had that fiasco with jones rejecting the tenure off of the came to her after not initially giving her tenure, they have been somewhat of an aboutface. Theyve s approved this whole of civic leadership and Free Expression and asked her a Syrian Government said no money for prolife groups, the trustees came out ands passed a resolution affirming their commitment to be point neutrality. So were seeing positive change on that levelel but the realitys daytoday, no, the resolution makes no impact on students. Doesnt augment the Campus Experience when the going to class and gripe about what they dont like the teachers are going to enable the viewpoint that led the Syrian Government president to say no money for prolife groups. I think were seeing change at the very top level in the right direction. Theres hope but its not yet helping the students. Add onto that, at stanford the university when we are think about the judicial process they commission and internal review of the process and so they took the steps to figure out what is this process how is it working, and thatt review released its findings publicly and found that the judicial process at stanford was quote not educational and overly punitive. Instances with cnet stanfordt since the investigation that i wrote about in my own peace, of those will happen under new reforms at the university administered. So weve are seeing administratos come together is itdm okay when you did talk about these issues, and you talk about how to move forward but were not necessarily seeing reforms and limited that are making a difference that is positive for student life. But do you take encouragement from the reaction that you and ginevra had to the articles you wrote . Are using not just a trustee and supervisor level but at all levels for those who are reading your accounts . Are you encouraged by that . I am. I think to some degree a lot of, trying to amend whats happening at universities today goes towards whats really happening. At least its a power of journalism fundamentally. So i do think sharing these stories of what students are going through is very impactful, particularly win alumni hear the stories and think aboutac how different i was from their own experience. That can be really powerful. Its a matter of continuing to tell these storiesl, continuing to talk to students and let them really air their grievances, talk about what they think would make theirbo expense better and more impactful and more fruitful. Rather than focus on some of the negative examples, i want to ask dr. Marschall and dr. Maguire, what schools are doing itin right . Who is serving as the model for what schools should be doing in Higher Education in this space . Well, i think most universities do have some difficulties but the first when they comes to mind is the university of chicago which of course is famous for its chicago statement of freedom of expression as well as the calvin reportal which argues for institutional neutrality, the idea that the university should not officially take positions on social and political issues of the day, and thats starting to get more traction. University of North Carolina has adopted it. And then third which is very important as well is the shields report which says faculty should be appointed and promoted only on the basis of merit. Merit in teaching, research, and intellectual service to the community. I think one thing that falls afoul of that is in use things like diversity or dei statements, mandatory dei statements in hiring. Another school that is doing some good things is purdue university. A few years ago they decided they were going to change what they were doing at the new Student Orientation program and have an excellent sort of Free Expression Free Speech Program that they offered to students when first set foot on campus. They have not implemented yet but recently aut report came bak from a president ial task force of the university of wyoming implementing or recommending that the school implement a number of points that would improve Free Expression on campus. At acta have what we call her Gold Standard for freedom of expression which is list of 20 things we think colleges can do to improve the conditions for Free Expression on the campus, at this proposal from university of wyoming its quite a few of them. If you were to adopt most of the proposals in this Task Force Report they would instantly be one of the best universities in the country in terms of their policies for Free Expression. And, of course, as has already been mentioned university of North Carolina i agree theyre doing mate Amazing Things and people should look at what theyre doing and follow them. Dr. Marschall. I think as far as experience, Hillsdale College bombing is ideal at this point back. You have a few good things come out of public universities because of what trustees have done and what the governors have done, so both trustees and Governor Abbott from the University University of texas system for gettinghe rid of dei statements, getting rid of dei program can also the college of florida. As far as who is doing it right i would say the only example i can think of is hillsdale, because so much of what people are trying to make positive change for students and institutions, theyre still the barrier between the bureaucracy, the administration is in the curriculum and what ism being peddled by these radical professors. Let me ask this question to the group in general because we do see movement in both directions on universities, some in favor of more freedom and freedom of expression, others in the opposite direction. But does it trickle down . For example,he at the university of chicago where they famously have the average chicago principles, do you think, or can anyone comment on whether or not students their field more free to voice unpopular opinions under that regime that at other universities . I think, thinking a lot about recently as there is enormous public, a lot of public emphasis and focus in coverage of the schools. I think that is obvious in the social experience and social side of college is important but one of the reasons were seeing so many bureaucrats at the schools is because like the chief experience officer. Theres so much discussion at so much focus onn what is happening at the schools and also outside of academic elements of school. I do think sometimes that there were ironically less discussion of these issues unless discussion of the sort of subjective experience happening outside of the schools and more of a return to the traditional academic model where its like the school is, college is a place you go as an 18yearold, to go to school and what happens outside of school and stuff under the purview of administrators. I think that you could see some kind of reduction in these issues andn so i think ironicaly a model of the two a lot is a british system is a much more academically focused model where the school s is seen as less responsible for providing this sort of massive cruise ship of clubs and activities and social structures and houses, and where the kids self organizing go and have a good time and is much less oversight of whats happening to them outsideha of class. I keep thinking about a change in american schools. I do think that it will be difficult to make any kind of change under these conditions because you do get something kind of like the committee where its like where you talk about like the review of the process and i think as long as theres so much emphasis on the students who really are just 18 try to go to school and have some friends outside of school and are so much hyperfocus on the students, its very difficult to maneuver in that atmosphere weather so much tension onuc what theyre able to say and not say and you get a lot of pressure from outside to build upf these systems that protect that are not. When you think about a place like chicago, i think, i have a couple of friends, ie think it does mad but what matters most is that the kids have culture on campus of feeling like that actions are not under so much scrutiny. But do these attitudes necessary come from the top, top down from the administrators to the students, or are younger Students Entering College with an emphasis on safety is is him and avoiding offense and the students themselves abdicating for restricting the dew points and freedom of speech of their fellow students progress theres certainly studies that show by the time students get to college and university their attitudes are already set. I think work by someone like eric kaufman has been running that have these attitudes are set when they arrived and remained set after they leave, and its troubling because now they are moving into professions like journalism, right . We hear stories about lawyers not wanting to take cases because they disagree with the views of their client. The wall street journal has just published a piece about how its increasingly difficult for people to find a counselor or therapist because therapists dont want to work with people whose views they disagreeh with. Its a real problem. We need to act, we need to do something about it. Entrance of what what can be done from the top down, i mean i would think adopting chicago principles or president who talks are Free Expression intellectual diversity, that signals to people. Its a something about the culture of the place. Its a something about the expectations of the place. If the president of your university is out there in public saying were going to maintain institutional neutrality, all of use matter how heterodox they are are welcome on this campus i would hope people campus would take heart and feel free to speak. Of course just adopting a statement is enough. You need to back it up with all sorts of practices and other policies, and education. Li eventually what you need is unique cultural change but that culture change has to start somewhere. As another example think of the reaction to the recent scotus case onre affirmative action, te response of higher ed has almost been into the clique to politically oppose it. That tells you something about the difficulty of cultural change. The american public, a majority of americans, are against affirmative action College Admissions. Scotus is against affirmative action College Admission by the College Admission officers remain firmly in favor of it. At acta we focus on donors, alumni, o trustees. And what i would say is that if youre in one of those categories which many peoples are, many people are alumni of the college, you should think about what is your college doing. If you are a donor what are they using her money for . If youre a trustee, you get appointed as a trustee its an honor. Theres a tendency to think that trustees are supposed to be university boosters. You go, rubberstamp a bunch of document a few times a year and then you get to go out to a nice dinner, maybe to a Football Game for a basket ballgame but trustees have fiduciary duty to the institution. They should be concern to uphold the Historical Mission of the institution. Be looking at the curriculum. Theyey should be looking at the finances. In terms of what ginevra is talking about one of the best things we could do is just shrink the size of the burke rc bureaucracy and campus substantially. If youre a trustee at a university, why dont you ask how much money is been spent on nonstructural staff at your institution and ask what are these people doing . How many of them do we really need . And you have the right and responsibility to ask those questions, and a board of trustees has the authority to do something about it. We have just a few minutes left for questions from the audience. Let me say ife you have a question let me know and andrew will come overnd and give you a microphone to y speaking to. When you take your turn, identify yourself and your affiliation, and please keep the questions brief, make sure that what you say has a question mark at the end of it and we will allow the panel to answer it. Any questions . Right here. Ill start. Thank you so much for a great panel. My question is for ginevra and francesca pick you mention several examples from stanford and other institutions. Obviously you both wrote about the example at the fraternity getting kicked off campus, the recent death of katie meier, and both cases seem like all of the different examples these schools have doubled without them what theyre doing. My question is why are they doing that . What can be done to change that with its alumni are other stakeholders to helping reverse the course . Thank you. I think to my reporting ive found, and ginevra said this earlier, that universities have a keen interest in preserving their image and in reducing risk. I think for many universities, fun is risky. I think thats a big part of it. I think universities particularly at stanford, many of the people i spoke to talked about the scandal beingbo a huge turning point in terms of the way the university approached preserving its image and look into student life and what students were doing and how they could be morent involved in tha. I dont necessarily have solutions. As a journalist i often look at thek problems, but i do think that risk is a huge part of it. When something is not under the control off the university it is [inaudible] had a question here in front. Thank you. Im a a chief operating officerf an insurer, captive insurer in Higher Education space. I am a former Vice President , one of manyic who is left of the field. As a think about this and appreciate dr. Maguire your remark regarding the role of the trustees but im also curious about your perspective on the faculty. Ultimately administrators can come and go. They are not tenured. Faculty are tenured faculty trust is all we have control of the institutions. Juries rather than focusing on administrators im curious about your perspective of the faculty, faculty tenured, faculty govern. Thank you for the question. Its an important principle in american Higher Education, and faculty, while the have seen their power decrease relative to highlevel administrators over the years, they still do wiela good deal of power. I think that there is a lot of room for faculty to push back and improve the situation on the campus. One of the heartening things about stanford in particular is that the faculty are pushing back, or at least some of them. The host of the conference on Academic Freedom. When the elimination of harmful Language Initiative came into the news, people like Russell Berman spoke out and they said this is bureaucrats run amok. We need to do something about it. We need to return control to the institution, to the faculty. There is a lot the faculty can do. On the other hand, of one of my concerns is that faculty themselves i are often one of te chief causes of a liberalism intolerance on campus, and theres not a lot of room to hope that thats going to change dramatically in the near term. Of course i hope it will and hopee it will in the long term. But similar to what i was saying about the response to the scotus affirmative action case, in the case of administrators, you see thect same thing with a lot of faculty. In moment where there was new data posted by gallup the other day, new survey results that show americans confidence in Higher Education has dropped to an alltime low of these sensitive and pulling it which i think is back to the 90s the theres plenty of reasons. One is the cost of education relative to the benefits in terms of the sound of the job you will get in that sort of thing. I think ideology is big part of i think theres a disconnect between what faculty think as a group, right, generally, and how they see the world and how the average american sees the world. And so far, the response of faculty generally has been to dig in and to want to vindicate themselves and they need to wake up and realize that they are, they are confusing their ideology and their expertise. Faculty of expertise they have things to offer us, thats obvious. But too often they think that they are ideological and political experts in addition to being scientific experts so i do have, you know, less hope about the faculty sort of on their own, turning things around, but i think, you know, students speaking up. If you have a minority of faculty who want to do something about it, think about the academy right and members of that organization and then you have alumni, saying, look, im going to withhold my funding until you do something about this because i love this institution and want it to be a better version of itself. If you have trustees willing to look at the books and ask the hard questions and media focusing attention, right, maybe all of that together can have an impact. I think we have time for two final questions, one in back. Okay, there. Good morning. My name is dr. Brian paul, i work with dr. Mcguire at acta. Compelling thoughts so far and dr. Mcguire spoke about the alumni this this matter. Im intrigued by ms. Davis, and curious based on your own personal research and experience, what can alumni do to support students in these environments and strive to encourage, if not apply some additional pressure to ensure that universities have high quality, affordable education and experience . I think in my experience, one of the best things that alumni can do is staying involved with their student groups on campus. So i think alumni can provide an important perspective what a group used to be like. And provide perspectives on students kind of what was formerly typical for a College Experience. I think a lot of what the schools do thrive on is destroying institutional memory so that kids, like, really, you get a fresh crop of freshmen moved from out of state and no idea what the College Experience is supposed to be like and quickly adopt the norms of their institution unless theres an alternative. One of the things i thought was other stanford students in my year, ones who had relationships with alumni successful outside of the institution, and allowed them to feel strong in their opinions and powerful on campus and they werent so into you shall or experiences they were having on campus alienating from the view didnt make them crazy or bad. And then, also, help them kind of keep the traditions in their organizations alive, where you have like an alumni group saying, hey, this is something we used to do. You guys should do this, do you still do this, do that. Thats crazy. You should push back. You guys can be crazy, we were crazy my year. So i think having those casual relationships with alumni and students, yeah, the experience youre having isnt normal and i think thats something that when were in this sort of flux point with University Experience is really, really important because i think what i see is actually the biggest threat to these schools kind of returning to normal because i think the majority of the student population want to have the kind of classic College Experience. That was really my experience at stanford, a vocal minority that is speaking out against the social groups and its a more engagement oriented to hear from them more. The biggest threat, once you destroy the social fabric and the traditions and the norms of these schools, its difficult to rebuild them without the institutional memory. You destroy a tradition, you cant bring it back five years later because people dont have the senior to junior to freshmen, to sophomore memory line so i think that alumni being with students and sometimes its like one sentence that provides that clarifying outside perspective, that like what youre experiencing isnt normal, how youre responding to it is totally fine and this is what a College Experience should be and make it yourself and they go outside the bounds and then providing role models for goods and understanding that theres life outside of their little experience that theyre having in college and they should feel free trying to experience themselves in the fullest capacity they can, theres more than what the cool shows theres possible. How would you say that alumni can help . I think to describe it well, many of the alumni that i spoke to for my reporting talked about getting involved with their organizations that they were a part of on campus and i think it was a valuable experience both for the alumni and the students and i think that students can learn from alumni. Theyre role models and they can encourage students to push back against the administration and try to regain that aspect of student life. You know, i feel very grateful having gone to princeton. I think that principalton has a Strong Alumni connection and Alumni Network so i think its, you know, and also theres alumni to reach back out to the students and organization and get involved and ask them how they can help organize social events like that to keep that connection alive. If i want to add really quick, theres a group, the Alumni Free Speech Alliance and theyre an organization of free speech groups at campuses around the country and i think, you know, people could look that group up. In addition to staying in touch with groups youre involved with while youre a student on campus, this is an important set of groups that people could look to join. Stanford has one that focuses on free speech and critical thinking. One final question. Right over here. Thank you so much, panel, for your time. I appreciate it. My name is elizabeth crawford, im an editorial intern at the american spectator. My question im going to direct to dr. Marshall and dr. Mcguire. Im curious as to the efficacy of promoting of values in neutral institutions, since in some sense the takeover over free speech platforms in particular have been by the left and i think a lot of conservatives operate under the assumption that the left is operating under the same rules that we are, when, in fact, now theyre promoting dei. Now theyre, you know, banning speech on campuses. So im just curious, is this something that is something we can preserve for the future and are there any policies in place to make sure that it truly is values neutral like were hoping it will be . Thank you. And i think the key to that is something that we talked about and whats called the undergraduate program because the graduate students, and the levels are the teaching assistants and the instructors for the first year seminars that are systematically pushing that out and ai driven curricula. Theres had a lack of curiosity that is debilitating in graduate programs across the country, especially Research Universities where people go to study things that conform with their identities or are a part of their identities, and studies is the key during this case. So, if theres a way for trustees to somehow vet or look at how graduate faculty and graduate students are kind of like the selfreproducing pool of grievancedriven scholars that lack curiosity about other people and reverse that trend then you can have viewpoint neutral values back into universities and try whenever i talk about this topic, that doesnt mean were not going to talk about marxism, or whether you agree or disagree, and we are going to help people understand the spectrum of debate on whatever topic were talking about and how some learn how to think about those things critically. To me, thats what a true viewpoint neutral education looks like. Yeah. So, i mean, for one thing, i would distinguish, too, between private institutions and public institutions. You can have different visions for what a university ought to be and how it ought to characterize itself. I would say certainly with public institutions, theres a hole into the first amendment. And we should have as neutral an institution as possible that sticks to the first amendment. And youre right that we cant be naive about the politics. You know, involved in the politics that have led our universities to where they are today. But i think we need to distinguish between what we want our universities to be, the end that were pursuing and the means that we need to use to get there and we need to somehow try to use those means in a principled way to get us to that end. I think what we want are colleges and universitying free and open to inquiry and truth and cultivating Young Americans to be good citizens that are preparing them for fruitful careers, right. We dont want institutions that are the sort of reverse em image of what the left wants them to be. At the same time i think we also need to recognize the sort of institution that we want is something that needs to be accomplished through policy and through a political process. Right. If you think about even establishing a society that values and protects free speech, that itself is a political accomplishment, right . So we cant sort of operate in some kind of pure ether where we just expect people to observe institutional neutrality and free speech. We have to recognize that there are people who dont value those things and there are people who are working dependence them working against them and we need to put in place, policies, procedures and people who can ensure that our institutions will remain devoted to the ends that we want them to serve, even if there is room in those institutions for people that dont value those things. Thank you. Well, thank you to the organizers for putting this together. Thank you for your attention and the really Great Questions and join me in thanking our panelists for a terrific presentation. [applause]. [inaudible conversations] the u. S. Senate returns from summer recess later today at 3 p. M. Eastern and theyll vote on advancement of Phil Jefferson to be vice chair and theyre expected to work on more of president bidens nominations for the Federal Reserve and National Labor relations board. Live coverage of the senate on cspan2 and watch all of our congressional coverage with cspan now or online at cspan. Org. This fall, watch cspans new series, book that shaped america. Join us as we embark on a captivating journey in partnership with the library of congress with a book that shaped where americans live. The 10 books featured in our series provoked thoughts, won awards, led to significant societal changes and still talked about today. Hear from featured Renowned Experts that will shed light on impacts of the iconic works and virtual journeys to Significant Locations across the country tied to the celebrated authors and unforgettable books. Common sense. Huckle berry finn, free to choose by milton and rose freedman. Watch our 10part series, books that shaped america. 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