On the campuses of America’s leading research universities, students and professors have returned to class and researchers are hard at work on medical and technological breakthroughs; unseen is all the groundwork that university leaders have been doing over the past months to make the new school year safe for students and conducive for learning.
This fall, our campuses are coming alive with students, faculty, staff, research, sports, and the campus activities that take place every year. But this new academic year is different in one major respect: Behind the scenes, university leaders have worked hard in recent months to ensure that all members of their campus communities understand how to engage with each other peacefully and respectfully even when they profoundly disagree.
The 2023-24 school year saw disruptions on university campuses across the country and around the world because of tensions stemming from Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel and that country’s subsequent military response. While the vast majority of campus protests were peaceful, some incidents of violence, vandalism, or harassment garnered significant publicity. Some students and faculty – including people who are Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Arab, Palestinian, and others – reported harassment and discrimination based on their identity. Conflicts over pro-Palestinian encampments that sprung up at campuses over the spring further exacerbated the situation, and activists and politicians frequently criticized our universities and their leaders.
It was a difficult year.
Over the summer, though, our universities got to work re-assessing how they could best ensure both free expression and student safety on campus in this new school year. In light of lessons learned from this spring, they’ve revised and clarified policies – and they’ve worked to make sure that those policies are clearly and prominently publicized to all members of the campus community.
These efforts have included new web pages with comprehensive, accessible information on campus free-speech rules (such as this one at Purdue University, this one at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and this one at Princeton University). The efforts have also included sessions presented as part of new student orientation (such as this one at Vanderbilt University and this one at Princeton University).
Universities have also found innovative ways to push information on those policies out to students, including sandwich boards and sidewalk stickers with QR codes that take mobile users to pages on campus rules and procedures as well as social media campaigns with quick videos outlining the basics of policies and links to more detailed information.
Administrators have met with and educated student groups and student leaders about their policies. At the same time, university general counsels, communicators, and other leaders have implemented strategies to ensure their own faculty and staff understand both campus free-speech and anti-harassment policies and how to comply with federal and state laws.
America’s leading research universities engage in this work because they strive to strike the right balance between allowing free expression and keeping people safe from discrimination, harassment, and intimidation based on their ethnic or religious identity. This fundamental security in one’s own identity is a prerequisite for students, faculty, and researchers to learn, explore new ideas, and conduct groundbreaking research that benefits our nation.
Campuses have also been renewing and bolstering their efforts to help students learn how to productively engage in dialogue with those they disagree with on challenging issues. At Washington University in St. Louis, the Dialogue Across Difference program includes an eight-week undergraduate course designed to foster civil, but honest, conversation about divisive topics. And The Ohio State University has gathered all of its resources on how to have civil conversations – including resources for faculty and staff and information on upcoming campus discussions and other events – in one virtual place on its “Listen. Learn. Discuss.” page .
No type of organization in American life is better suited than colleges and universities to foster these kinds of difficult, but civil, conversations; after all, we have the subject-matter experts who can provide facts and context that shed important light on divisive topics; we have campus communities that offer the venue for dialogue among friends and colleagues who live and work together; and we have programs to foster that dialogue on an ongoing basis.
Since our universities are working to preserve free expression rights while simultaneously ensuring that our students can learn in an environment free from harassment and intimidation, we want to make sure that Congress doesn’t inadvertently make it harder to do so. The House recently passed the End Woke Higher Education Act (H.R.3724) ; the bill purports to support free speech on campus, but would actually hamstring public universities’ ability to regulate, on a content-neutral basis, the time, place, and manner of any protests on campus. This means universities would actually be less able to prevent the disruption of education, harassment of vulnerable groups, and intimidation of students – the very issues its supporters in the House had expressed significant concerns about this past academic year. I recently wrote a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) outlining our serious concerns with this legislation, and I hope you’ll take the time to read it.
Universities learned some difficult lessons in the last academic year and took steps over the summer to revise and clarify policies around free expression to ensure that they can continue to serve their educational and research missions. At the same time, our campuses are doubling down on efforts to foster better, more respectful, and more productive dialogue about incredibly difficult topics that can otherwise divide campuses and communities. America’s leading research universities will continue their work to make students not only safer, but better equipped to engage with each other and the world.