I just returned from the University of Wyoming, where I debated the President of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) Todd Wolfson over the need for colleges and universities to maintain institutional neutrality. The debate was organized by the Steamboat Institute and was live-streamed. Given the interest in the debate and the polling results below, I am hopeful that we can prevail in this existential battle for higher education. Steamboat has now posted the debate in case you would like to hear the arguments on both sides of this issue.
The formal question presented for debate was: “Is institutional neutrality necessary to preserve the university as a forum for open inquiry rather than an actor in political disputes?”
I spoke in favor of institutional neutrality while Wolfson argued against it as a necessary component to higher education.
Wolfson was elected as AAUP president on a pledge to make that organization a “fighting organization” against what he views as the rise of fascism, and the organization has been criticized for its political advocacy, including a recent controversy over the targeting of Civics Centers. During our exchange, Dr. Wolfson admitted that the AAUP has changed from being itself an ideologically neutral organization but said that they have now become a union that has dispensed with neutrality.
I enjoyed meeting Dr. Wolfson, who presented a spirited argument against institutional neutrality. I found him entirely civil, respectful, and frank in addressing these issues. I am also thankful to George Bogden, who moderated the debate in Laramie.
The viewers from around the country were polled after the debate and voted in favor of institutional neutrality 64% to 14% (with 23% undecided).
Here is the debate:
I found the debate difficult to watch because your opponent seems to be unable to handle the basic building blocks of argumentation, including, e.g.: what is a counterexample; the difference between necessity and sufficiency; the importance of clarifying definitions, etc.
He frustratingly argues like this:
1) The proposed rule under consideration is that: “To preserve academic freedom, universities ought not officially comment on political issues, unless those issues concern the core function of the university itself, e.g. academic freedom.”
But, reasons your opponent, there are uncontroversial counter-examples to this rule, and these counterexamples prove that the rule is not viable as a generalization.
So what are the devastating counterexamples that your opponent has in mind? He cites cases in which universities recently have spoken out on issues concerning the core function of the university, (e.g., when they speak out against the Trump administration’s threats to academic freedom).
Such cases prove there are exceptions to the institutional neutrality rule, as your opponent reasons. And therefore, he claims, it is a bad rule and ought to be discarded in favor of some other policy — which policy could never bring himself to specify.
The above reasoning is questionable for several reasons.
a) Consider an analogous line or reasoning involving the following proposed rule: “No one except the guilty should be punished.” Imagine an opponent to this rule arguing against it by providing examples of _guilty people_ being appropriately punished. On this basis, the opponent claims that the rule is not general because it has such exceptions. But the so-called exceptions (“except the guilty”) were built into the rule from the get-go. Same with his claimed counterexamples to the institutional neutrality rule.
b) Assume the counter-examples that your opponent provides really _are_ genuine exceptions to the institutional neutrality rule (instead of built into it from the beginning). Would it then follow that because a rule has exceptions that means it is a worthless rule? No, since virtually all rules have exceptions, and we wouldn’t want to get rid of them all just because someone comes with an exceptional case. You, Prof. Turley, pointed this out ably, although your opponent didn’t seem to take seriously your response.
2) Your opponent also argued that institutional neutrality cannot be _necessary_ to preserve academic freedom because other things, e.g. tenure, are (also?) necessary to preserve academic freedom and they are, in his view, more important than institutional neutrality in this regard.
The above reasoning from your opponent is also questionable. It seems to mistakenly assume that something can have only one necessary condition or that only the most important condition can be a necessary one.
Cf his argument that if a university possessed institutional neutrality but lacked other things, e.g. tenure, then it wouldn’t have academic freedom.
Therefore, he concludes, institutional neutrality is not necessary for academic freedom. (All this really proves, if anything, is that institutional neutrality is not _sufficient_ for academic freedom! But that’s obvious to all and uncontroversial.)
It would be like arguing that eggs are not necessary to make a conventional cake because sugar or flour is [also] necessary, and possibly more important than eggs. If someone wanted to make a conventional cake and they had eggs but they lacked sugar or flour, then they couldn’t make a conventional cake; therefore eggs are not necessary for conventional cake-making.
But something can have more than one necessary condition, and most things do. Certainly something as complicated as academic freedom has many necessary conditions. The proposal under consideration was not that institutional neutrality is the most important necessary condition for academic freedom, or that it is the sole necessary condition, only that it is one necessary condition.
Therefore none of these claims from your opponent have any merit as counter-arguments to the proposal.
Or imagine that someone reasoned like this: A person with eggs only and none of the other necessities for conventional cake-making can make no conventional cake. Therefore, the argument goes, eggs are not necessary for conventional cake-baking. (Again, if true it would only prove that eggs are not _sufficient_ for conventional cake-baking.)
It is as if your opponent has (amazingly??) never thought through the meaning of the concept, “necessary condition” or understood how it relates to the concept, “sufficient condition.”
You must have felt so frustrated listening to all this questionable reasoning in real time, Prof. Turley. (Or maybe you’re used to this kind of thing?)
To be sure, I believe there _is_ an interesting question to be discussed around institutional neutrality. That question concerns the relationship between the mind and politics, whether or to what degree the mind can transcend politics, or whether and on what grounds the mind can at least claim to be a kind of separate and independent entity, with its own prerogatives, etc. Unfortunately, your opponent was not prepared to have such a discussion.
Please keep trying, Dr. Turley! Surely there are better interlocutors out there!
What is this nonsense about “institutional neutrality in higher education”? First, there is no such thing as “institutional neutrality”. Second, there is no such thing as “higher education”?
This things have long vanished from most of the world. In America, over the years, some 99.9% of institutions formerly known as “colleges” and “universities” have been erased from existence. They have been replaced by Leftist Indoctrination Entities or “LIEs”, for short.
They are primarily designed to promote the IslamoCommuNazi agenda, and actual education either takes a seat at the back of the bus, or it doesn’t exist at all. Thus, its graduates know little about any of the basics that were formerly and commonly taught decades ago, but they are incredibly stupid, uncreative, unproductive, and worthless members of society who can’t even tell you what a woman or a man is.
And as the world is replaced with these depraved, degenerate, slugs, the costs of the remaining citizens who graduated from genuine educational institutions from 30 or 40 years ago has risen exponentially to pay for those worthless slugs. And as the population of the IslamoCommuNazi subcretinoids continues to massively increase as the production lines of the LIEs continue to crank out more and more of these depraved, degenerate, slugs, the politiucal leaders get worse and worse. Now, real Americans have to deal with the damages being caused by the lowlife, scumbagwormmeat subhuman filthy perverts as Mamdani, AOC, Platner, MTG, Jeffries, Tlaib, Fateh, Talarico, Valdez, Crockett, and on and on and on, when such creatures shouldn’t even exist on the planet, let alone be elected to public office.
It seemed to me that Prof. Wolfson’s position on Institutional Neutrality was not well stated. At one time I thought his position was the same as Prof Turley’s – its ok for universities to defend their interests but beyond that is a bright line to be crossed. I wondered then why the debate. Later on, its seems that Prof Wolfson’s position seemed to shift but it was not clear exactly where he thought universities could take a position that would be beyond Prof. Turley’s bright line. There was a lot of talk but not a whole lot of insight on Prof. Wolfson’s part.
Nothing in the world has a bright line. There is always some level of blur when looking at any large number of events. The call for a bright line is to move the evaluation of that blur so far from the actual border that nothing is left on the other side.
Sticking a knife in someone seems like a bright line, except if the person has a crushed larynx and needs their windpipe opened so they can breath. But make it a bright line that no one can ever use a knife to stab someone and suddenly emergency care is endangered.
Turley’s bright line is much as the one advanced for pornography – he’ll know when something crosses that line when he sees it, but he will never put his bright line in writing as that would show it’s flawed.
“Nothing in the world has a bright line.”
Thank you for agreeing that there are bright lines.
I don’t think that most people took Prof. Turley’s concept of a bright line as being anything more than a limiting principle – something to debate about where the edges are. The Kalven Report certainly was trying to promote the concept that universities “should not take positions on social and political issues unrelated to its core function of education and research.” This is fairly objective.
My problem with Prof. Wolfson is that is was not clear whether or not he supported the Kalven Report rule or not. But instead in his opening and closing remarks, but not during the debate, he focused on the word “necessary” in the Steamboat proposition. Since the rules for interaction among groups or individuals can be viewed through game theory, the change of those rules, however simple, can have momentous consequences. Prof. Wolfson seemed to be proposing to remove the Kalven Report rule but without examining its effect as if this was trivial and not his responsibility. He did, however, admit that he viewed the AAUP as a union rather than a professional organization. I wonder if the current membership is aware of this.