From a Washington Post editorial:
“The lesson for Harvard and for all universities is that it was a mistake to create the expectation that university presidents must weigh in on the great issues of the day. If administrators, as a matter of principle, avoided pandering to left-wing activists on campus they would be on firmer ground resisting activist, right-wing or otherwise, voices off it. And their claims to respect all speech — within uniformly applied time, manner and place limitations — would have more credibility.”
“The business of a great university is not to take sides in America’s culture wars. In a previous editorial, we cited the University of Chicago as a bastion of consistent standards and open inquiry. In 1967, Chicago put forward Kalven principles, which outlined an ideal of the university as the venue for free, unencumbered — and, yes, at times offensive — debate and deliberation. When universities appear to take a ‘collective position,’ they undermine this purpose, signaling to students and faculty that there is only one right way to think.”
