University of Minnesota must reverse its anti-speech policies

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Rebecca Cunningham is off to a rocky start as the new president of the University of Minnesota. Two weeks before her inauguration, she is already failing on probably the most important issue facing higher education today — academic freedom and freedom of speech, both of which are imperiled in Minnesota and across the United States.

It began in June. Under Dr. Cunningham’s predecessor, Jeff Ettinger, the system administration, responding to outside pressure, rescinded the offer that had been made to Holocaust historian Raz Segal to direct the University’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Segal, an Israeli Jew, had made the mistake of applying the same human rights standards to Israel as any other country. The rescinded offer, which prompted national and international press attention, proved a major embarrassment for the university and led the system’s Faculty Senate to vote “no confidence” in Ettinger and Rachel Croson, the provost who had joined Ettinger’s attack on academic freedom.

When Cunningham assumed the presidency on July 1, not only did she fail to reverse course and offer Segal the directorship that he had been offered, but, remarkably, she proceeded to place Croson in charge of two supposed academic-freedom initiatives she announced. In other words, the provost charged by the faculty just weeks earlier with undermining principles of academic freedom was tasked by the president with spearheading the university’s future academic freedom discussions.

Then, last week, Cunningham reported at a special Board of Regents meeting “the University’s systemwide planning for civic engagement for the fall 2024 semester.” Given the expected resumption of student protests on the Israeli destruction of Gaza — heightened now by the regents’ decision in that same meeting not “to divest of certain investments related to Israel” — these are the guidelines the administration says it will use in determining its response.

There is much in the plan that makes sense. For example, protesters may not damage university property or “threaten, harass, intimidate, stalk, or assault others.” They also may not “interfere with classes, research, work, or other University operations.” While I would have preferred the addition of “meaningfully” or “unreasonably” before “interfere” in that last one, these are all, if interpreted appropriately, no-brainers. But there are a number of provisions that are fundamentally at odds with free speech and academic freedom. And given that Cunningham announced her “systemwide planning” at the same time the regents voted on a new investment policy, the guidance immediately presented an internal contradiction.

But first, consider some of what the president announced. Does her administration really intend to prohibit spontaneous demonstrations that draw more than “100 participants”? What happens if 103 people show up? Do three need to leave, thus proving unable to exercise their free speech rights? Or will the administration at that point begin moving to shut down the demonstration as a violation of university policy?

Are protesters really prohibited from holding “signs and banners [larger] than 14 inches x 22 inches”? If someone brings with them a standard-sized poster board, as protest signs often are, will that be unceremoniously ripped from their hands? And I’d like the president to identify for me a “banner,” which by definition is a long strip of material, that does not exceed the size of a standard newspaper front page.

Who are the “other staff” — beyond “student workers” — who “may not participate in a protest during their work hours”? Does that include faculty or staff who might join a demonstration between classes or during their lunch break? Does it include unionized employees — though no more than 100 of them! — who might participate in an informational picket? Given the president’s claim that the guidelines broadly “apply to … faculty, staff, students, and visitors to our community,” those proscribed from engaging in political activities would seem to include me, my colleagues and everyone else employed by the university.

Cunningham will no doubt respond that these are policies she inherited, not created. But these policies are frankly absurd, and the appropriate response from any university president who professes to support academic freedom and free speech would be to seek their rescission or revision, not to double down on them.

The president’s affirmation of these guidelines is doubly concerning in light of the vote by the Board of Regents last week to adopt “a position of neutrality” with respect to investments in the university endowment in all but “rare circumstances.” Among the criteria for determining whether such circumstances exist is a demonstration “that there is a broad consensus regarding the request within the university community (e.g. students, faculty, staff, and alumni).” This seems like a criterion designed to be impossible to meet, as it is entirely subjective. Who, after all, decides if and when a consensus exists, and what objective measure is being used in making that determination? Yet even assuming for the moment that the criterion was drafted in good faith, it still remains incompatible with the president’s guidelines.

I’m just imagining how this might play out. Contemplate a scenario in which students bring a divestment request to the Board or Regents, as a number of them did last semester. The regents, who are only infrequently on the university’s five campuses — and almost always under tightly choreographed conditions — then charge the president with determining whether a university consensus exists. The president, reflecting on activity on these same campuses, responds that it does not, as evidenced by the fact that no large demonstrations over the issue have taken place. What is left unsaid, of course, is that the University of Minnesota has prohibited large spontaneous demonstrations.

The new semester, and students’ protest activities, are just barely getting underway. It is not too late to reverse the university’s anti-speech policies. Cunningham should immediately begin doing so.

Scott Laderman is a professor of history at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and a former president of its faculty union.