Dartmouth College Adopts ‘Institutional Restraint’ Policy in Reaction to Hot Political Topics
“We want to make it very clear that there are critical values that the institution supports and is committed to advancing.”
It’s not surprising that so many schools are adopting this type of policy. They get themselves into trouble with over-the-top reactions to the news.
The College Fix reports:
Dartmouth becomes latest Ivy League institution to adopt ‘institutional restraint’ policy
Dartmouth College recently rolled out an “Institutional Restraint Policy,” becoming the latest Ivy League institution to install a guideline that calls on campus leaders to avoid weighing in on the hot-button political and social topics of the day.
In Dartmouth’s case, its new policy replaced its previous “Institutional Statements vs Individual Statements Policy” that had been active since 2022.
Of the eight Ivy Leagues, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, University of Pennsylvania, and now Dartmouth have now implemented policies “committing to the principles of institutional neutrality,” according to Heterodox Academy.
The academy maintains a list that shows 119 academic institutions have adopted such policies in recent years. They’re based on the 1967 Kalven report, a venerable document from the University of Chicago that spells out how universities should stay neutral on political and social issues.
While most universities call their statements “institutional neutrality,” Dartmouth took a slightly different approach.
Administrators were intentional in distinguishing the idea of “institutional restraint” from “institutional neutrality,” as the latter term implies that universities “should not have positions on social and political issues,” the Dartmouth student newspaper reported.
“We chose the word ‘restraint’ consciously,” Dartmouth’s Committee on Institutional Statements chair and Professor John Carey told the outlet. “We want to make it very clear that there are critical values that the institution supports and is committed to advancing.”
When faced with situations directly related to the university’s mission, school officials will “reaffirm Dartmouth’s core values,” the institutional restraint policy states.
In it, college leaders also reaffirmed their commitment to free speech and cultivation of an open-forum community.
“To provide space for diverse viewpoints to be raised and fully considered, Dartmouth should exercise general restraint in issuing institutional statements,” the statement continued.
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And guess which college in Ohio is missing from that list? I was at Hopkins when Hillarity was trying to get the health stuff through and she would cruise up from DC every month or so to make a speech at Turner Auditorium as if being there would add credibility to the drivel she was dishing out. The employees hated it because the security stuff just inconvenienced us, but some admins must’ve thought it was worth it to be able to kiss the ring, I guess. Of course, once Bloomberg bought himself a School of Public health, their credibility has dropped to zero in the eyes of many.
Make sure Dartmouth’s institutional restraints include a large quantity of ball gags for the more obstreperous students.
Duct tape. The only thing it can’t fix is “Stupid”. But it can muffle the sound. (And is cheaper than a truckload of ball gags.)
As a Dartmouth alumnus I have been saddened by how far my school and many other institutions have fallen off the wagon of free speech and just common sense. Several years ago I informed the Alumni Fund that I was suspending all contributions unless or until they fired all DEI staff….of course that has not happened. However, the new college president has shown more backbone and common sense than her predecessors, so I am hopeful. But it still a long journey to get to where they should be have been all along.
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