Academic Freedom’s Proxy Wars
Chronicle of Higher Ed | Suzanne Nossel
CEO of PEN America and Harvard alum Suzanne Nossel (AB 91 JD 96) explains that “Professors with unpopular views are being punished for unrelated infractions. That’s terrifying… Proxy reprisals are familiar to those who study free speech worldwide. Authoritarians use them to imperil not just academic appointments but fundamental freedoms…reprisals for expression muzzle not only an individual speaker, but all others who might contemplate saying something unorthodox.”
In her article, Nossel argues that “Institutions are resorting to indirect ways of penalizing offenders, relying on flimsy pretexts and sometimes invoking completely unrelated conduct by the targeted speaker…technically avoiding speech-based reprisals that run afoul of law and policy.”
Nossel also calls such “proxy reprisals” dangerous— “They can have the same chilling effect as direct punishment, raising the perceived costs of voicing contestable viewpoints or heretical ideas. Principled institutional commitments to free speech and academic freedom demand guarding against proxy reprisals. They must not be allowed to serve as a workaround to punish speech that merits protection.”
The article details the cases of Joshua Katz at Princeton, Charles Negy at University of Central Florida, Eric Muller and Gene Nichol at UNC, and Ilya Shapiro at Georgetown as some recent examples.
What can be done? The onus, Nossel argues, is on university leadership—”University officials need to honestly interrogate their own systems, motives, and decision-making processes… They should ask themselves whether, but for the hot-button speech, the contemplated disciplinary action would still be afoot.”
Instead of punishment, Nossel urges university officials to engage in “frank conversation” with critics. “Such conversations can educate all parties about how free-speech protections can be reconciled with the exercise of voluntary restraint essential to enabling diverse types of people to inhabit the same campus peaceably.”
