{"id":432386,"date":"2024-07-17T12:10:25","date_gmt":"2024-07-17T19:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/?p=432386"},"modified":"2024-07-18T10:21:06","modified_gmt":"2024-07-18T17:21:06","slug":"academic-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/calmatters.org\/_zh\/education\/higher-education\/2024\/07\/academic-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"UC moves to limit where academic departments post opinions against backdrop of Gaza War"},"content":{"rendered":"
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University of California\u2019s Board of Regents is a step closer to requiring that statements of academic departments appear on separate webpages rather than on departmental homepages. Interest in the issue swelled as professors and students debated the war in Gaza. <\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\n

Update: On July 18 the full board approved the webpage policy with one no vote.<\/em>

After seven months and three voting delays, the University of California Board of Regents is on the verge of approving a pared-down policy<\/a> outlining how academic departments should publish political and social opinions on university websites \u2014 largely embracing a set of standards that faculty themselves adopted in 2022. The journey to a consensus re-energized longstanding debates about academic freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While entirely a faculty matter, some pro-Palestinian students condemned previous versions of the regents\u2019 proposed policy, which they interpreted as part of a crackdown on free speech that punished protests against Israel. Student anguish over the war in Gaza \u2014 and their anger<\/a> with UC leadership for so far not calling for a ceasefire or divesting from weapons manufacturers and companies tied to Israel \u2014 helped to amplify the faculty\u2019s alarm over the regents\u2019 initial proposals.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The university will need to further clarify its rules on speech and expression by this fall. The latest state budget is withholding $25 million<\/a> from the UC until system leadership sends a report to the governor\u2019s office<\/a> explaining its policies for public demonstrations and other free speech matters. While the two concepts \u2014 what faculty can do under academic freedom and how students can express themselves under free speech rules \u2014 are distinct issues, they\u2019re often enmeshed publicly, especially over themes as contentious as Islamophobia, antisemitism and its connection to Israel<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most regents were vague about the impetus for the plan, but one regent, Hadi Makarechian, said in January<\/a> that the proposal emerged \u201cbecause some people were making some political statements related to Hamas and Palestinians.\u201d That meeting was occasionally testy, with another regent urging his peers to practice \u201cdecorum.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What the new policy would do<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The new rules, passed today by a joint committee that will be voted on by the full board tomorrow, require that writings which depart from research, course information and other administrative announcements not be posted on the homepages of academic departments and other divisions. Instead, they can appear<\/a> on other departmental web pages designated for opinions. Full-board approval is likely; the rules would take hold immediately. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only one regent, student member Josiah Beharry, voted no on the measure today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These so-called \u201cdiscretionary expressions,\u201d which are writings \u201cthat comment on institutional, local, regional, global or national events, activities or issues,\u201d also need to be clearly labeled as opinions that don\u2019t necessarily reflect the position of the university or campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The policy specifically avoids<\/a> restricting academic research, course content or other \u201cscholarly endeavors\u201d \u2014 an undefined term \u2014 that may touch on political or social matters from appearing on the homepage. This was new wording<\/a> that emerged since the last draft in March<\/a>. Nor does the policy proscribe speech on non-campus websites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were satisfied that the current policy does not violate principles of academic freedom or free speech,\u201d said James Steintrager, chair of the Academic Senate, in an interview with CalMatters in May, when the proposal was on the agenda but ultimately never heard. \u201cWe’re still concerned about the drive for and necessity of a policy in this area, but we think that with the input of the senate, the Board of Regents has ended up in a much better place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sentiment is a departure from how faculty initially received the policy proposal in January, which was saddled with confusion over the scope of the measure and what it sought. One possible takeaway was that the January plan intended to bar any expression of faculty opinion on administrative websites, \u201ca draconian policy,\u201d Steintrager said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe’re still concerned about the drive for and necessity of a policy in this area, but we think that with the input of the senate, the Board of Regents has ended up in a much better place.\u201d<\/p>James Steintrager, chair of the Academic Senate, university of california<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The regents also postponed votes in January and March after discussing the matter publicly each time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During today\u2019s regents meeting, Steintrager reaffirmed his praise and critique of the rules, adding that \u201cpublic comment assertions to the contrary, this is not a ban on discretionary or political statements.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richard Leib, a regent member and former chair of the board who has viewed some of the chants at student protests against the war in Gaza as antisemitic, said that \u201cthis whole topic about free speech is all BS, because what we’re trying to do is show transparency.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does it go too far or not far enough?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

But if it were up to senate members, which include most full-time professors across the system, the regents would just adopt the policy the senate itself approved in 2022. Unlike the regents\u2019 approach, the 2022 policy provided guidance \u2014 using words like \u201cshould\u201d rather than \u201cmust\u201d to encourage academic departments to distinguish their opinions from the positions of the university. The Academic Senate policy also recommended that departments \u201csolicit minority or opposition statements\u201d as well<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Academic Senate believes that \u201cthe UC community at the level of departments and other units of the sort largely governs itself appropriately, and we favor policies that enable successful self-regulation over more restrictive measures,\u201d Steintrager wrote to the regents May 1<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“A claim that a department of a public university takes as a political position will be taken as the official stance of the university, no matter how it is delivered.\u201d<\/p>Jeffrey Young, a clinical psychologist, UCLA<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The regents’ proposal stopped short of that, preferring a mandatory set of publishing guidelines in part because few academic units or campuses \u201chave followed the June 2022 Academic Senate advisory guidance,\u201d a board document representing the regents said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Jewish faculty<\/a> wanted the regents to ban all department statements and said the proposed rules don\u2019t go far enough. \u201cA claim that a department of a public university takes as a political position will be taken as the official stance of the university, no matter how it is delivered and no matter what qualifications are added,\u201d said Jeffrey Young, a clinical psychologist at UCLA, during public comment yesterday. Several other professors voiced similar sentiments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focus on ethnic studies departments<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Regent Jay Sures pushed for the policy, arguing in January that opinions on homepages \u201cwill be mistaken as the position of the institution itself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late October<\/a>, he excoriated an Oct. 16 letter by UC ethnic studies faculty that faulted the UC for calling Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7 attack on Israel an act of terrorism. The ethnic studies letter,<\/a> which didn\u2019t name Hamas, said that \u201cto hold the oppressed accountable for \u2018terrorism\u2019 reinscribes a colonial narrative that seeks to have the world believe that history began on October 7, 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sures wrote that the council\u2019s members should \u201ccommit to learning more about antisemitism and all forms of hate and how it lives on our campuses where you are tasked and trusted with educating our next generation of students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The homepage for UC Santa Cruz\u2019s critical race and ethnic studies department as of today still contains language calling on scholars and organizers to \u201cact now to end Israel\u2019s genocidal attack on Gaza,\u201d a statement that\u2019s been appearing since at least Oct. 25 of last year, according to the web archiving tool Wayback Machine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department was following Academic Senate guidance, department chairperson Felicity Amaya Schaeffer said in an interview, as the guidance wasn\u2019t mandatory and deferred to campus departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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UC regents tackle free speech, safety concerns amid Israel-Palestine conflict<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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With the regents committees\u2019 backing of a mandatory rule, Schaeffer said key questions remain unanswered, mainly, whether the department\u2019s call to action counts as discretionary speech that needs to be moved to a different webpage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said the regents policy is an attack on academic freedom. She also believes the regents are overreaching rather than deferring to faculty expertise on their own subjects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe do have three faculty who work specifically on Palestine, who were hired by the university to do this kind of research,\u201d she said. \u201cSo for us, this is not at all opinion, this is about the expertise of the department in which many of us write critically about state power, war, genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A rule like the one the regents is proposing is a poor fit for an ethnic studies department, Schaefer said, because \u201cthe lines between what gets called political or discretionary and research are completely entangled and inseparable.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

UC San Diego\u2019s ethnic studies department, however, appears to have relocated its statements of support for Palestinians to a secondary page reserved for \u201cstatements and commentaries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Dec. 4, 2023 snapshot of its homepage<\/a> shows a statement calling \u201cfor an immediate end to the war crimes and genocide taking place against the Palestinian people (50% of whom are children).\u201d But by Dec 14, the homepage underwent an overhaul<\/a>, with political statements moved from the homepage to the new \u201cstatements and commentaries\u201d section beneath the \u201cAbout Us\u201d tab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Academic department leaders will be responsible for implementing the rules. \u201cThe expectation then is that the unit leadership enforce the policy,\u201d said Charlie Robinson, general counsel for the UC, at today\u2019s regents meeting, \u201cand if there are any concerns about it, then you go up the hierarchy to make sure that it’s being enforced properly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t\n\t\t

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Understanding California’s college students’ protests over Israeli-Palestinian conflict<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Grief, fear, and hopes for peace: California college students describe campus climates during Israel-Palestine conflict<\/a><\/h3>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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