“There is value to this idea, under two conditions: critics remain free to speak their minds (something that cannot be taken for granted (…) ), and universities remain free to defend their core mission. After all, they can hardly be neutral about their own existence.”

4/4

“To be sure, many universities have recently committed to “institutional neutrality”(…): institutions of higher learning should not comment of all kinds of issues of the day. A university should be, according to a seminal statement of the principle, a home for critics, not itself be the critic.”
3/4

“Universities must avoid the trap of “we’ll sacrifice humanities if you leave us the hard sciences”. Humanities (and social sciences) are, after all, disciplines: its practitioners are disciplined by professional standards in (…) “transparent, testable processes”.”

2/4