Tag: neutrality

  • Institutional neutrality can’t be used to turn students into puppets

    Institutional neutrality can’t be used to turn students into puppets

    At a moment of political turmoil in American history, rife with violence, mass protest, and division, one university chose neutrality.

    In 1967, when the president of the University of Chicago convened a faculty committee to deliberate on how the university should approach social and political issues, American higher education faced a pivotal moment. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement had changed the face of campus activism just three years prior. American society was rocked by protests against the Vietnam War and racial segregation.

    That the committee emerged from deliberations with the Kalven Report, which recommended that colleges and universities stay neutral on major social and political issues, was a testament to the committee’s understanding of the purpose of the university to advance knowledge and truth-seeking.

    The Kalven Report, named for the chair of the committee Harry Kalven Jr., articulated the role of faculty and students as instruments of “dissent and criticism,” and the university’s role as the “home and sponsor of critics.” Importantly, the report noted that the university “is not itself the critic,” and added that the spirit of independence and neutrality mean the university “must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.”

    FAQ: Institutional Neutrality and the Kalven Report

    What is institutional neutrality? The idea that colleges and universities should not, as institutions, take positions on social and political issues.


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    FIRE has previously argued for colleges and universities to adopt institutional neutrality, both as a boon for the campus climate and as an insurance policy for the university. By declaring itself neutral on major political and social issues, a university ensures that it does not chill potential dissenters on campus by constantly taking official positions on unresolved topics. And it is worth noting that the Kalven Report makes a significant exception for threats to the “very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry.” There, a university may feel obligated to speak out on issues related to university governance.

    But recently, two public universities demonstrated that they misunderstand what institutional neutrality entails. They used the principle to restrict student speech under the guise of protecting university neutrality. 

    At the University of Texas at Austin, a Graduate Student Assembly representative introduced two resolutions opposing implementation of a Texas law eliminating university DEI programs and initiatives. The GSA prepared to bring the resolutions to the floor for consideration.

    But an administrator intervened on the grounds that the resolution constituted “political speech that is not permitted to be issued by a sponsored student organization in their official capacity.” This move directly contravened the GSA’s stated purpose to “serve as a voice for graduate students on matters of academics, student welfare, and campus policy.”

    FIRE and the ACLU of Texas wrote to UT Austin to explain why the university’s restrictions on the GSA are not required by the university’s adoption of institutional neutrality.

    When a student government merely expresses an opinion about a policy that has significant impact on campus, it is engaging in expressive activity protected by the same First Amendment principles that safeguard the speech of individual students. 

    Institutional neutrality restrains an institution from adopting official positions on major issues. While there are open questions about how far within a university institutional neutrality must extend, neutrality certainly does not require — and indeed, is at odds with — a university restricting the speech of student bodies. This is an especially important distinction to make, given the fact that student associations and governments are supposed to serve, in part, as voices for the student body.

    There are certain circumstances where student governments do exercise powers delegated by their universities, and so must abide by the same constitutional and legal obligations that bind the university itself. Student group funding, for example, is one area where student governments are required to be viewpoint-neutral, and FIRE has urged universities to intervene when student governments violate that obligation.

    But when a student government merely expresses an opinion about a policy that has significant impact on campus, it is engaging in expressive activity protected by the same First Amendment principles that safeguard the speech of individual students. Unduly restricting it violates students’ rights and the spirit of institutional neutrality, which is intended to allow the university to house exactly this kind of discourse and debate.

    UT Austin is not alone. This past summer, Purdue, just one year after adopting institutional neutrality, ordered an independent student publication to stop using “Purdue” in the publication’s URL and said it would end facilitating the publication’s free circulation on campus.

    The university did so because the publication is a private entity, and the university feared, in light of its stance on institutional neutrality, that the publication’s speech would be associated with the university. But this order made clear that Purdue misunderstood institutional neutrality. The university was incorrect that allowing a clearly independent student publication to use Purdue’s name in its URL was somehow a violation of institutional neutrality. 

    This was simply an attempt to censor student speech by removing long-standing informal arrangements the paper had with the university — an entirely unnecessary decision that could chill expression on campus. A reasonable person would not assume that an independent student publication or student organization is speaking on behalf of a university. This is especially so when one considers how many disparate university organizations use a university’s name or receive university funding.  

    Punishing student or faculty speech in the name of maintaining institutional neutrality turns the entire concept on its head. 

    Indeed, the wisdom of institutional neutrality is that it allows universities to foster the widest possible ranges of voices and perspectives on campus. It is not about protecting universities from being associated with views they dislike. Rather, universities can create environments where their community members feel free to take unpopular positions and debate difficult ideas without feeling that their university is putting its thumb on the scale in one direction or another. 

    Institutional neutrality does not mean penalizing student publications for their viewpoints, just as it does not justify muzzling student governments. Punishing student or faculty speech in the name of maintaining institutional neutrality turns the entire concept on its head. 

    Nearly 40 institutions, including university systems, have adopted institutional neutrality, and FIRE will continue to urge other universities to follow suit. But institutional neutrality must not be misunderstood as obligating a university to restrict the speech of student governments or publications. We urge UT Austin, Purdue, and other neutral institutions to refrain from using neutrality as an excuse to censor student speech.

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  • Gaza, higher education, and the ethics of institutional neutrality

    Gaza, higher education, and the ethics of institutional neutrality

    When I published my academic article Witnessing Silence: The Palestinian Genocide, Institutional Complicity, and the Politics of Knowledge in June this year, I shared it on LinkedIn expecting it might quietly circulate among those already engaging with Palestine and decolonial education.

    Instead, what followed was an unexpectedly wide response – emails, messages, and private conversations from academics and professional services staff across the sector, expressing that the piece gave language to something they had been living with but unable to name.

    Where the original piece offered a theoretically grounded, autoethnographic account of institutional complicity and epistemic violence in UK higher education, this is a direct reflection on what that silence means in practice: for those of us who work within universities, support students, write policy, and try to teach with integrity in times of crisis.

    This is not a neutral topic. Nor, I believe, should it be. But it is one that demands clarity, care, and honesty about what our sector chooses to say – or not say – when faced with the mass killing of civilians, including thousands of children. It also demands that we reckon with how our silences function, who they serve, and who they leave behind.

    What is the silence we’re talking about?

    Since October 2023, higher education institutions in the UK have issued few, if any, direct statements on the situation in Gaza. Where communications have been made, they have been strikingly general: references to “ongoing events in the Middle East,” or “the situation in Israel and Gaza.” In many cases, even the word “Palestine” is omitted altogether.

    This is not simply a matter of tone. Language signals recognition, and its absence is felt. In the same period, UK universities have published clear and immediate statements on the war in Ukraine, the Christchurch mosque attacks, and the murder of George Floyd. These responses were swift and specific, naming both the nature of the violence and the communities affected.

    By contrast, when it comes to Gaza, where, as of April 2025, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics reported that 17,954 children killed, 39,384 children orphaned, and 7,065 children injured, many with life-changing disabilities most institutions have chosen vagueness or silence.

    The use of the term “genocide” is not a personal flourish. It has been raised by international human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, by UN experts, and by legal scholars. It is also under formal consideration at the International Court of Justice, which in January 2024 issued provisional measures recognising a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza. To avoid naming this, or to replace it with neutral euphemisms, is not caution. It is abandonment.

    I do not assume that this silence stems from indifference. In many cases, it reflects complex pressures: reputational risk, external scrutiny, internal disagreement, legal advice. But intention does not cancel out impact. And the cumulative impact of this silence is a deepening sense that Palestinian suffering is institutionally unrecognisable: too controversial to name, too politically fraught to mourn, too inconvenient to address.

    How silence affects minoritised staff and students

    The consequences of silence are not theoretical; they are lived. For many Muslim, Arab, and pro-Palestinian staff and students, the ongoing refusal to acknowledge what is happening in Gaza has created a climate of anxiety, exhaustion, and quiet despair. What I describe in my research as “moral injury” – the psychological toll of witnessing profound injustice while being expected to remain silent – has become, for many, a defining feature of daily academic life.

    I’ve heard this from colleagues across roles and disciplines: early career researchers who self-censor in lectures and grant proposals, students too afraid to name Palestine in their dissertations, and professional services staff torn between personal conviction and institutional messaging. Some have received formal warnings; others speak only in private, fearful of reputational damage or being labelled as disruptive. The burden of caution is not equally distributed.

    These are not isolated feelings. For many colleagues and friends, this silence also carries an unbearable weight: the knowledge that our lives are treated as less valuable and more easily dispensable. Conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Gaza, and Syria have taken millions of lives, yet they rarely provoke the same sustained outrage or mobilisation that far smaller losses elsewhere receive – a phenomenon documented by Kearns et al. (2019). To live with that awareness is haunting. And when universities, too, remain vague or silent, the omission feels less like caution and more like confirmation, that even here, in institutions that speak of justice and care, some lives – our lives – and losses are considered harder to name.

    I want to be clear: I am not accusing individuals of deliberate harm. But when institutions fail to name atrocities, when they issue statements that sidestep historical context, and when they offer wellbeing support without acknowledging what that support is for, they deepen a sense of abandonment that many minoritised staff already carry. It becomes harder to feel safe, heard, or morally aligned with the institutions we work in.

    Silence becomes censorship

    Silence in our universities is not just absence. It often comes with a cost for anyone who dares to speak. What looks like neutral restraint can be revealed, in practice, as institutional censorship.

    Since October 2023, disciplinary investigations have spread across UK campuses. A joint investigation found that at least 28 universities launched formal proceedings against students and staff over pro-Palestinian activism, involving more than a hundred people. Other reporting suggests that as many as 250 to 300 employees across the sector have been investigated or threatened with dismissal simply for expressing pro-Palestinian views.

    A HEPI report documents how encampments across UK universities, including many Russell Group members, were met with heavy institutional responses. Emails obtained by journalists also show that university security teams adopted “US-style” surveillance tactics during protests, often under pressure from their own professional networks.

    These are not isolated anecdotes. The pattern is clear. Silence is not neutral. It is often enforced. When colleagues or students raise their voices, they risk being investigated, disciplined, or even expelled. That cost is real and immediate, and it must be named.

    Ethical contradictions

    What makes the silence so disorienting is not just the absence of language, it’s the dissonance between that silence and the values our sector claims to uphold. We talk about decolonisation, inclusive pedagogy, and trauma-informed practice. We encourage students to “critically engage with systems of power,” and we celebrate academic freedom as foundational to our purpose. Yet when faced with a case of genocide – documented by international bodies, witnessed daily in the media, and devastating in its scale – many universities fall silent.

    This is not simply a question of public statements. It is a deeper ethical contradiction that permeates the day-to-day environment of higher education institutions. When staff are encouraged to design anti-racist curricula but discouraged from naming colonial violence in Palestine, the message is clear: some histories are welcome, others are not. When mental health services are promoted but cannot address the context of collective grief, the care offered feels hollow.

    None of this is new. As my article argues, the logic of institutional silence is historically patterned. Higher education has long been selective in its expressions of solidarity – often willing to speak when the political stakes are low, but cautious when they risk reputational or legal exposure. What we are seeing now is the cumulative effect of that selectivity: a moral framework that is uneven, inconsistent, and, for many, increasingly untenable.

    What can institutions do?

    If silence has consequences, then breaking it must be an intentional act. This doesn’t mean rushing to issue statements for every global tragedy. But it does require universities to reflect on the ethical frameworks guiding their public responses, especially when those responses (or omissions) disproportionately impact already marginalised groups.

    First, naming matters. Even if a university does not take a political position, it can acknowledge the reality of civilian death and collective grief. It can refer explicitly to Palestinians as a people, not just as part of a geography. It can recognise that some communities in our institutions are disproportionately affected by what is unfolding, and that they are looking to us not just for pastoral care, but for moral clarity.

    Second, policy protections must catch up with practice. Staff who speak out within the bounds of academic freedom should not face disproportionate scrutiny or reputational risk. Nor should students be penalised for engaging critically with the politics of occupation, war, or settler colonialism. Institutional support must be consistent, not selectively applied based on the political palatability of the cause.

    Finally, universities must reckon with the unequal distribution of emotional labour. Many of us who are called upon to “lead conversations” on inclusion or belonging are also the ones absorbing the silence around Palestine. That dissonance is unsustainable – and addressing it requires more than a line in a strategy document. It requires courage, consistency, and care.

    There is no perfect statement, no risk-free position. But neither is neutrality ever neutral. If we expect students and staff to bring their whole selves into our classrooms, then we must be prepared to name the losses and injustices that shape those selves—and to respond with more than silence.

    Silence is not safety

    The idea that universities must remain neutral in the face of political crisis may feel institutionally safe, but it is ethically brittle. Neutrality, when applied unevenly, is not neutrality at all. It becomes complicity, dressed up as caution.

    What makes this moment so painful for many in the sector is not just the lack of solidarity, but the sense that even the language of care has become selective. If we are truly committed to fostering inclusive, trauma-informed institutions, then we cannot exclude entire communities from the scope of our empathy. We cannot preach justice in our classrooms while avoiding it in our corridors.

    In the weeks following the article’s publication, I received messages from colleagues across the country – many from minoritised backgrounds – who described feeling both moved and afraid: seen, perhaps for the first time, but still unsure whether it was safe to speak.

    There is still time for institutions to act, not by offering perfect words, but by showing they are listening. By naming what is happening. By protecting those who speak. And by recognising that silence is not safety. For many of us, it is precisely the thing we are trying to survive.

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  • Purdue fails its own test on institutional neutrality

    Purdue fails its own test on institutional neutrality

    In June 2024, the Purdue University Board of Trustees boldly declared that Purdue does not take sides on the leading, and often contentious, issues of the day. Quoting the University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report, the board affirmed that, true to the principles of “institutional neutrality,” the university is host to dissidents and critics but “it is not itself the critic.”

    That is, until the critics say something the university doesn’t like. 

    In Purdue’s case, all it took was for the independent student newspaper The Exponent to publish an editorial announcing it would remove the names and images of pro-Palestinian activists from its website over concerns that the federal government would use them in its efforts targeting what the government called “pro-jihadist” speech. Purdue’s administration then went on the offensive. Citing “institutional neutrality,” the university told the publication, run by Purdue students since 1889, to stop using the name “Purdue” in its URL. Purdue also said it would stop circulating the newspaper and end preferential parking for its staff. 

    Shake-up at the top: UChicago, Claremont, Purdue all drop in 2024 College Free Speech Rankings

    In this year’s College Free Speech Rankings, Purdue University, University of Chicago, and Claremont McKenna all lost their elite top 10 status.


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    But the Kalven Report’s appropriate, self-imposed limitations apply strictly to the university’s own speech. It has nothing to do whatsoever with the speech of students, student groups, or independent student publications.

    Demanding that the paper drop the name “Purdue” from its web address makes a mockery of the phrase “institutional neutrality.” The Kalven Report, which Purdue professes to follow, warned:

    The university is a community … which cannot take collective action on the issues of the day without endangering the conditions for its existence and effectiveness. There is no mechanism by which it can reach a collective position without inhibiting that full freedom of dissent on which it thrives.

    In other words, the mere act of taking an official position on an issue may stifle dissent because anyone who disagrees is now not only disagreeing with the position, but with the university itself. That ends up undermining the primary reason for the university’s existence in the first place. The idea is for the university to avoid offering its own opinions in order to give community members space to freely offer theirs. That includes publications like The Exponent, which may report or editorialize in a way that favors certain viewpoints. 

    There’s little prospect of Exponent readers confusing the publication’s takes with  official university doctrine, as Purdue apparently worries will happen when it says the paper “should not associate its own speech with the University.” A quick visit to the “About Us” section of the paper’s website reveals that The Exponent makes it perfectly clear that it’s “independent of the university” and “jurisdictionally and financially” separate from Purdue. 

    In its bizarre attempt to invoke “institutionality neutrality” to change the newspaper’s URL, Purdue is also ignoring trademark law. As the paper’s staff notes: 

    The university asked for The Purdue Exponent to no longer use the word “Purdue” for all commercial uses, even though the Purdue Student Publishing Foundation has a trademark on the name “The Purdue Exponent” [registered with Indiana’s Secretary of State’s office] until 2029.

    The Foundation currently uses “Purdue Exponent” for the paper’s URL and not the paper’s masthead. Even so, if Indiana’s trademark examiners thought that there was any likelihood of readers confusing The Exponent’s works with official university publications, it would have never approved the publication’s trademark application. Along similar lines, no one (we hope) sees the name of Purdue University College Republicans or Purdue College Democrats and assumes that, because “Purdue” is in the name, either student group speaks for the school. In scenarios like these, the only confused party is Purdue. 

    Purdue should be applauded for committing to Kalven principles. But it makes a mockery of said principles by censoring student journalism.

    Not all free speech advocates agree that Purdue’s actions undermine institutional neutrality. In a recent blog post, Heterodox Academy Director of Research Alex Arnold argues, “By ending its special relationship with, and consequent subsidies for, The Exponent, Purdue has chosen to treat it like any other self-described independent student news organization.” He adds, “Granting of special privileges and perks to The Exponent may further give the impression that it is, in fact, a news agency of Purdue, and even speaks in some way for the university.” 

    But it’s extremely doubtful that, unless Exponent staff writers are forced to use metered street parking instead of university spaces, readers will be unable to tell the difference between an op-ed and a university press release. And while it’s dubious that Purdue only circulating one paper implies Purdue’s endorsement of all the contents of said paper (including potentially conflicting op-eds), the university’s fixation on the paper’s URL is especially irrational. 

    Purdue’s overreaction and misapplication of its professed principles risk jeopardizing the progress made by dozens of other higher education institutions that have committed to institutional neutrality. According to FIRE’s latest tally, 32 colleges or systems of schools have formally committed to not take positions on social and political issues unless those issues “threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry.” 

    The University of North Carolina system, Vanderbilt, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, and, of course, the University of Chicago have all adopted official positions on institutional neutrality, and we’re leading the fight to get more institutions on board.

    Critics have argued that neutrality is impossible because everything is political, from school calendars to core curricula. By that logic, even declining to make political statements — or deter potentially-biased student reporting — is a political act. But this merely serves as a rhetorical trap designed to justify disposing of neutrality altogether. 

    The truth is that it’s simply not the place of the university to comment on the issues of the day, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or changes to Medicaid, that aren’t related to the institution’s educational mission. Misapplying institutional neutrality opens the door to even more blatant violations of this time-tested principle. 

    Institutions that have adopted institutional neutrality pay close attention to how the others enforce neutrality, and one school’s overzealous application can translate to harmful practices across the board. In this politically fraught time, it is more important than ever for universities to give students and faculty the space they need to make their voices heard. Purdue should be applauded for committing to Kalven principles. But it makes a mockery of said principles by censoring student journalism. FIRE hopes other universities will practice what they preach and stay true to institutional neutrality. 

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  • Purdue Cuts Off Student Paper Citing Institutional Neutrality

    Purdue Cuts Off Student Paper Citing Institutional Neutrality

    Purdue University has ended a long-standing partnership with its independent student newspaper, The Purdue Exponent, and will no longer distribute papers, give student journalists free parking passes or allow them to use the word “Purdue” for commercial purposes.

    The Purdue Student Publishing Foundation board (PSPF), the nonprofit group that oversees The Exponent—the largest collegiate newspaper in Indiana—said the changes came without warning.

    On May 30, PSPF received an email from Purdue’s Office of Legal Counsel notifying the group that their contract had expired more than a decade ago and the university would not participate in newspaper distribution or give the students exclusive access to newspaper racks on campus.

    In addition, the message said, the university will not enter into a new contract for facility use with the paper to remain consistent with the administration’s stated policy on institutional neutrality.

    According to a statement from the university, it is not consistent “with principles of freedom of expression, institutional neutrality and fairness to provide the services and accommodations described in the letter to one media organization but not others.”

    The Exponent is the only student newspaper, though Purdue also has two student news channels, FastTrack News and BoilerTV.

    Legal counsel also asked The Exponent to keep “Purdue” off the masthead and out of the paper’s URL because “The Foundation should not associate its own speech with the University.” PSPF says it has a trademark on “The Purdue Exponent” until 2029.

    PSPF and Purdue have held distribution agreements since 1975, in which Exponent staff would drop papers off at various locations across campus and staff would then place them on newspaper racks.

    In 2014, the Exponent delivered the university a new contract to renew the agreement for the next five years, according to paper staff. The contract was never signed, but the terms of the agreement continued until Monday, June 2.

    Now, The Exponent is permitted to distribute papers themselves and have nonexclusive access to newspaper stands on campus, according to the university; students said they don’t have early access to many of the buildings the way staff do.

    “Purdue’s moves are unacceptable and represent not only a distortion of trademark law but a betrayal of the university’s First Amendment obligations to uphold free expression,” Dominic Coletti, a student press program officer for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told The Exponent. “Breaking long-standing practice to hinder student journalism is not a sign of institutional neutrality; it is a sign of institutional cowardice.”



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  • Heterodox Academy report finds spike in neutrality statements

    Heterodox Academy report finds spike in neutrality statements

    Since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, triggering a brutal retaliatory war in Gaza, at least 140 colleges and universities have adopted statements of institutional neutrality—up from just eight prior to the attacks, according to a new report from Heterodox Academy, a nonprofit advocacy group seeking to promote viewpoint diversity on college campuses.

    The vast majority of institutions—97 percent—cited the values of “community and inclusion” to justify their embrace of statement neutrality. “Free speech and academic freedom” and “public trust” were each referenced as a rationale by 88 percent of institutions; 64 percent attributed the move to “balancing rights and responsibilities.”

    Of the institutions that have adopted neutrality statements since 2023, 78 percent are public and 22 percent private. Governing boards drove the change at 68 percent of the public institutions; at more than a quarter of those—including in Indiana, Utah and North Carolina—state legislatures mandated the shift. At private institutions, presidents and faculty were much more likely than governing boards to instigate the push for institutional neutrality.

    “The rapid adoption of institutional statement neutrality policies marks a major shift in how colleges and universities engage with broader societal debates,” the Heterodox report reads. “Statement neutrality not only empowers students, faculty, and staff to engage in robust debate, it also reinforces the critical values of seeking truth and generating knowledge rather than advocating for partisan political positions. In an era of declining public confidence in higher education, these policies represent a critical step toward restoring universities as trusted spaces for free inquiry and intellectual growth.”

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  • Academic freedom doesn’t require college neutrality

    Academic freedom doesn’t require college neutrality

    Amid public campaigns urging universities to commit to “institutional neutrality,” the American Association of University Professors released a lengthy statement Wednesday saying that the term “conceals more than it reveals.”

    The statement, approved by the AAUP’s elected national council last month, says it continues the national scholarly group’s long commitment to emphasizing “the complexity of the issues involved” in the neutrality debate. “Institutional neutrality is neither a necessary condition for academic freedom nor categorically incompatible with it,” it says.

    The push for universities to adopt institutional neutrality policies ramped up as administrators struggled over what, if anything, to say about Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israelis and Israel’s swift retaliation in the Gaza Strip.

    The AAUP statement notes that “institutional neutrality” has varied meanings and that actions—not just words—convey a point of view. For instance, some argue that to be neutral, institutions shouldn’t adjust their financial investments for anything other than maximizing returns. But the AAUP says that “no decision concerning a university’s investment strategy counts as neutral.”

    The AAUP asserts that by taking any position on divestment—which many campus protesters have asked for—a university “makes a substantive decision little different from its decision to issue a statement that reflects its values.”

    “A university’s decision to speak, or not; to limit its departments or other units from speaking; to divest from investments that conflict with its mission; or to limit protest in order to promote other forms of speech are all choices that might either promote or inhibit academic freedom and thus must be made with an eye to those practical results, not to some empty conception of neutrality,” the AAUP statement says. “The defense of academic freedom has never been a neutral act.”

    Steven McGuire, Paul and Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at the conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni, called the statement “another unhelpful document from the AAUP.”

    “Institutional neutrality is a long-standing principle that can both protect academic freedom and help colleges and universities to stick to their academic missions,” McGuire told Inside Higher Ed. “It’s critical that institutional neutrality be enforced not only to protect individual faculty members on campus, but also to help to depoliticize American colleges and universities at a time when they have become overpoliticized” and are viewed as biased.

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  • Academic unions should adopt neutrality (opinion)

    Academic unions should adopt neutrality (opinion)

    Institutional neutrality at universities is having its moment in the aftermath of a year of nationwide campus protests over the Israel-Gaza war. The list of universities that have adopted neutrality has grown over the course of the past 12 months. The concept necessarily is expanding to include conversations around university investments. Yet, academic unions have slipped under the radar as purveyors of positions on political issues. They should not be neglected in the push for neutral stances except for those that directly pertain to an institutional mission. In the case of the union, this should be to promote labor interests. Professors from a range of ideologies should be able to find common cause for collective bargaining purposes without being forced into supporting other political positions.

    The lack of neutrality of professors’ unions on non-labor-related issues is a pernicious problem. Federal law and some state laws that pertain to unions work to compel professors’ speech. Under the federal National Labor Relations Act, if a majority of private sector workers voting in a union election choose to unionize, all workers in that bargaining unit must be exclusively represented by that union. New York’s Taylor Law requires the same for public employees. And, if workers want the benefits of membership, like voting for union leadership and contracts, they must pay dues.

    While public employees could choose not to be union members before the Supreme Court’s 2017 Janus v. AFSCME ruling, that case now guarantees their right to not pay agency fees. But even if workers wish to eschew membership and not pay fees, they cannot dissociate entirely. They are required to be represented by a union that speaks via statements at the local, state and national level on many non-labor-related subjects. Therefore, with their veneer of solidarity, unions quash viewpoint diversity and suppress First Amendment rights. They tie one of the only forms of dissent possible (withdrawing dues) to disenfranchisement from the union, the organization that negotiates their wages and labor conditions.

    Professors who do stop paying their dues are often derided as “free riders.” They risk offending union leadership, who have a say in university processes that can impact their employment, like grievances and denial of reappointment. The union is formally required to provide equal advocacy as their exclusive representative. However, even if one believes biases will never prevail against “free riders,” there is still the suppressive impact of professors’ perception that paying dues and keeping quiet is best for their careers.

    And so, professors are forced into a kind of protection racket, paying unions that may endorse positions with which they may disagree. The National Education Association has opined on everything from ending private prisons to climate change, from promoting women-led businesses to helmets for motorcyclists. They have issued statements on the Israel-Gaza conflict, advocated for codifying Roe v. Wade into law and called for Donald Trump’s ouster. They have adopted progressive ideological lenses throughout such statements, arguing for instance that “white supremacy culture” is prevalent in the current U.S., and that “intersectionality must be … addressed … in order to advance the [NEA’s] social justice work.”

    To be clear, I am not arguing that these positions taken by unions are bad. I am not reflecting my own political preferences. I am not highlighting progressive examples to critique only progressive examples: I could find none that can be considered conservative. I am not saying that it’s not possible that a majority of members agree with the statements. I am also not arguing that workers do not have the right to form associations to advocate for political causes.

    What I am arguing is that due to laws making exclusive representation compulsory, unions should adopt neutrality on political issues that do not impact the primary purpose of academic unions: advocating for professors’ interests as workers. This lets ideological diversity exist and prevents coerced speech and dues payments. This neutrality is of paramount importance with public sector unions, where union leadership activities may receive taxpayer-subsidized administrative benefits.

    This neutrality should extend to political endorsements of individual candidates. While there may be some argument to be made that endorsing a pro-union or pro–higher education candidate over their opponent directly pertains to professors’ interests as workers, this carries with it implicit endorsement of a wide slate of other policies. A better approach would be for unions to support (or critique) candidates’ specific policy proposals or voting records. It would also reduce antagonism between unions and candidates they did not endorse, should those be elected.

    Recent examples show the perils of academic unions not having a neutrality standard. In 2018, a University of Maine professor sued his union, noting his opposition to its stances, like endorsing Hillary Clinton for president. More recently, in 2022, six City University of New York professors filed suit against the Professional Staff Congress (PSC), which passed a pro-Palestinian resolution they viewed as antisemitic. They resigned their memberships, along with approximately 263 other professors. But because of the Taylor Law, they are required to be represented by the PSC, which did not give evidence it could be fair in representing them. The PSC called them free riders, claiming their lawsuit was “meritless … funded by the notoriously right-wing National Right to Work Legal Foundation,” and described the “‘Right to Work’ agenda” as “rooted in white supremacy.”

    After lower courts ruled to dismiss their suit, the CUNY professors appealed to the Supreme Court, which just this month declined to hear their case. Yet, while this case could have been a victory for viewpoint diversity and free speech and an impetus for unions to get on the institutional neutrality bandwagon, future such suits will doubtless arise and reach a court favorable to their claims. Academic unions should get ahead of such a court ruling and make union membership attractive to all who may want to participate based on advocacy for improved working conditions, but not for particular solutions to international wars—or for wearing motorcycle helmets.

    Colleen P. Eren is a professor of sociology and criminal justice at William Paterson University and a research fellow at the Segal Center for Academic Pluralism. Her commentaries on higher ed and other topics can be found across a range of publications, including The New York Times, Discourse, Reason, and the Foundation for Economic Education.

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