College Presidents and the New Campus Culture War

College presidents found themselves in the crosshairs when it came to speaking about the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the aftermath. Controversy flared first at Harvard, where a coalition of student groups issued a pro-Hamas statement hours after the Hamas attack; with that student statement setting the tone, Harvard president Claudine Gay was forced to play defense and catch-up, issuing three statements in quick succession after her first statement was seen as being insufficiently critical of Hamas. What played out at Harvard was typical of what happened on many campuses, where presidents issued further statements when their first ones were read as too soft on Hamas. This fraught situation offers “a moment to think about the virtues of neutrality,” according to Tom Ginsburg, who directs Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at the University of Chicago. Ginsburg referenced the University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report, which recommended that institutions remain neutral on political issues, a recommendation recently endorsed by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression and the Heterodox Academy. But can college presidents now credibly adopt institutional neutrality, “given the number of issues on which leadership at Harvard and other universities have spoken out”? Perhaps the bigger question is this: Can colleges navigate a new campus culture war, where they broker speech on issues that may engender threats of harassment and violence, putting civil academic discourse out of reach? (See also Free Speech Isn’t Free—From Consequences.)