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’ policyDartmouth 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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