On Yale's approach to Institutional Voice; Phronesis and witnessing Truth

{UPDATE: A revised version of the essay appeared (here) at CrookedTimber.]

At the Eastern APA I had a quick breakfast with the eminent Spinoza scholar, Michael Della Rocca (Yale). Michael has been a source of intellectual joy in my life, and when I was still untenured, he also gave me a lucky break by soliciting my handbook article, “Spinoza and the Philosophy of Science,” and subsequently peddling it to all commers. (It’s one of my few papers I know my professional peers have read.) During our conversation he let slip he had co-chaired a committee at Yale, “Della Rocca & Rodríguez” on Institutional Voice. (Hereafter: “Della Rocca & Rodríguez”). Immediately (my bad) I started teasing him that he was a safe pair of hands.

Even so, and knowing of my ongoing interest on the topic of institutional voice, he invited me to take a look at the report. In fact, he intimated (without elaborating) a few times that there was a particular philosophical framing that I would care about it. And, after reading it, I think I figured out what he had in mind. If you are impatient (my dear reader) you can skip the next four eight paragraphs. In what follows I won’t summarize Della Rocca & Rodriguez, which is very brief. But I do want to nitpick on a few other points of concern first.

But before I get to that one aside. In the “Preamble” Della Rocca & Rodriguez, assert that at Yale, “individual faculty, as well as students, have broad freedom to speak, including to take positions on issues of the day—a freedom enshrined in and protected by the Woodward Report, which continues to guide Yale.” Now, Yale’s Woodward Report, named after the famous historian who chaired it, (formally titled the Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression at Yale), was issued by Yale University on December 23, 1974. Outside of Yale, this report has not been as influential as, say, The University of Chicago’s (1967) Kalven report. This neglect is a a bit of a shame because the minority opinion “A Dissenting Statement” to the Woodward report — penned by a law student, Kenneth J. Barnes, — gives an authentic sense of the intellectual ferment of the age.

Now the formal focus of Della Rocca & Rodriquez is rather narrow: it’s concerned with institutional voice. In the report this is characterized as “whether and when university leaders should issue statements concerning matters of public, social, or political significance.” Included in university leaders are not just “university leadership (the President, Provost, other central administrators, and deans),” but also “leaders speaking on behalf of other units of the university, including academic departments and programs.” As the report recognizes, institutional voice matters on campus (which is the committee’s main focus) and to wider, outside communities.

Many such university leaders are also faculty. Since Woodward, “individual faculty, as well as students, have broad freedom to speak;” so in many respects institutional voice so constituted here involves a self-limitation by the corporation (Yale) on this broad freedom. For, we are told that in general, “university leaders should refrain from issuing statements concerning matters of public, social, or political significance, except in rare cases.” Unsurprisingly, university leaders are also “obligated to speak to defend the university’s core values or concrete interests.” So far so good.

One very nice feature of Della Rocca & Rodriguez is that it recognizes that academic speech is itself rooted in particular processes that are time-intensive and deliberative in nature. I quote the whole paragraph because it gives a nice sense of the tenor of the report (not the least the role of judgment in it—which is rather important to the whole framing).

The frequent issuing of statements by leaders of the university runs contrary to the deliberative process inherent in study, research, and the production of knowledge, all of which are essential to the mission of the university. Leaders of the university at various levels can and should be encouraged to have the long-term interests of the university in mind and to exercise their judgment without the pressures imposed by artificial timelines dictated by social media or news outlets.

Before I get to the more elaborate discussion of practical judgment, I should make explicit one general unease I have with Della Rocca & Rodriguez. The report repeatedly notes that one of the functions of university leadership is the “fostering the free exchange of ideas” (also “promoting the free exchange of ideas”). Variants hereof are treated as a prized feature of Yale’s mission and campus life throughout the report. Let’s stipulate that the free exchange of ideas is a lovely feature of Yale’s mission and campus life.

Even so, the emphasis on free exchange of ideas on campus does point to two notable omissions: first, the report implies that the university does not understand its own mission as witnessing truth to the public. This is especially odd because the university motto, ‘Lux et Veritas,’ is appealed to when the reports speak to defend the university’s core values or concrete interests as an expression of its core mission. And this motto (and its Hebrew ancestor) is as beautiful an expression of the wish to witness truth as any known to us. (Since I am in no way connected to Yale, I won’t wax lyrically on it nor treat you to an interpretation of its Biblical origins.)

Witnessing truth sounds theological. But as I have argued (recall; and here), it is of central importance politically. In society, with its advanced division of (intellectual) labor and its cacophony of opinions and the many strategic agents who have an interest to distort, witnessing truth is more than a luxury it is a necessity to public decision-making. Since the discovery/production of truth is time-intensive and costly, and often unwelcome, universities have a special obligation and authority to secure access to it.* This is one of the key (public-spirited) political roles of the academy. So, when society needs it, universities ought to witness truth either in their corporate capacity or by enabling and defending (the sometimes unwelcome) faculty speech to that effect.

Second, at no point does “Della Rocca & Rodriquez” speak of the need to defend academic freedom (as distinct from the freedom to exchange ideas) as a core mission of the university. Academic freedom is rooted in the particular disciplinary methods and practices (and commitments) that constitute expertise. Academic freedom is the principle by which we regulate responsible and authoritative academic speech. It is designed to protect from interference, but also to allow for the exercise of (note this) good judgment when some speech is merely an opinion and not rooted in genuine expertise at all (and so sometimes even inappropriate in front of a classroom or curriculum).

So much for my unease. The closing two paragraphs of the report state the following under the heading “The Nature of the Judgment Recommended:”

The committee notes that, in recent months, a number of colleges and universities throughout the nation have adopted or reaffirmed formal policies of institutional neutrality or institutional restraint. While some of our guidelines may be in line with policies that proponents of institutional neutrality or restraint may also support, we emphasize that we have not recommended that the university adopt a position of institutional neutrality. Leaders may choose not to speak on a given matter without professing neutrality. And while our guidelines recommend restraint in most cases, they should be seen as grounded in a positive commitment to the university’s mission. In other words, we believe leaders should feel empowered to exercise their good judgment, in good time, about whether, when, and how it may be necessary to speak in order to advance that mission.

The kind of judgment we call for is a kind of practical intelligence or wisdom, or discernment, perhaps best captured by the term “phronesis,” which derives from ancient Greek philosophy. As ancient and not-so-ancient authors alike emphasize, such practical judgment cannot be captured in precise formulas. Instead, leaders must exercise discernment and active responsiveness to a variety of relevant considerations, in light of the mission of the university. We offer the above set of presumptions or default principles to guide leaders in thus determining whether, when, and how to speak.

So, first, I was very pleased to see the explicit denial of embracing “institutional neutrality.” (Recall this post on Jacob T. Levy; also this post on Harvard’s (“Feldman & Simmons”) much more publicized rejection of institutional neutrality.) In particular, I liked how “Della Rocca & Rodriguez” makes explicit that apparent silence by university leadership need not entail neutrality.

Second, as Michael intuited, I would welcome the embrace of practical intelligence (and I loved the use of ‘discernment’ to exemplify it). The possession of practical wisdom and the capacity to act on it is a necessary condition for leadership. And it is lovely to see the committee try to create appropriate space for deference to it at all levels of university leadership. As the report implies such practical intelligence is itself, in part, characterized by self-command.

But this fact also raises some uncomfortable questions for Yale. In our age the PhD is some (defeasible) evidence for the possession of a certain kind of disciplinary expertise which (to simplify) gives access to tenure-track jobs. The fullest protection of academic freedom is secured by tenure. But a PhD is never not even prima facie evidence of such practical wisdom. It is an open, somewhat disturbing question to what degree obtaining a PhD and at a later stage tenure selects against if not undermines the habits of thought needed to exercise practical wisdom. How to ensure that these correct habits of thought are present, thus, in university leadership at all levels (and select for them) is itself no small matter.

The problem is exacerbated by the fact that we also expect from university leadership good judgment in the practice of showing leadership in learning and teaching (or experiments in living) with all the obligations and self-restraint and self-discipline those require (recall this post responding to an essay by Agness Callard also rejecting institutional neutrality). If phronesis is relatively absent in the ranks of university leadership — and we may not all find ourselves in conditions as blessed as Yale’s — it is by no means obvious that the principles so beautifully articulated by “Della Rocca & Rodriquez” are (ought implies can) binding.

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*There are, of course, other institutions that focus on the reliable production of reliable of truth: the justice system and government agencies.