Just a few years ago, it felt like every college in America was eagerly releasing statements about political controversies. Schools released statements on everything from police brutality to the 2020 presidential election to anti-Asian hate. But after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, universities were in a bind, unable to make a statement on the conflict that wouldn’t anger either anti-Israel activists or risk getting university leaders hauled before congressional inquiries into on-campus antisemitism. Soon after, some colleges reacted to this pressure by announcing that they would no longer make official statements on political events that do not directly concern the university itself.
“If the university and its leaders become accustomed to issuing official statements about matters beyond the core function of the university, they will inevitably come under intense pressure to do so from multiple, competing sides on nearly every imaginable issue of the day,” reads a Harvard faculty–led report whose recommendations were accepted by administrators last May. “This is the reality of contemporary public life in an era of social media and political polarization.”
“We embrace the guiding principle that the remedy for speech that some may find hurtful, offensive, or even hateful is not the disruption, obstruction, or suppression of the free speech of others, but rather more speech,” reads another statement from last spring, this one from Syracuse. “Except under the most extraordinary circumstances…the University does not make institutional statements or pronouncements on current controversies.”
According to a new report from Heterodox Academy, a higher education organization that promotes viewpoint diversity on campus, they’ve been joined by dozens of others. By the end of last year, 144 colleges in the U.S. and four in Canada, serving around 2.6 million students combined, had adopted neutrality statements. Essentially all of these statements came after October 7, as only eight colleges had official neutrality policies in place before the attack. The report further notes that the vast majority of announcements cited factors like “community and inclusion,” “free speech,” and “public trust” for the shift away from official treatments.
“The unprecedented increase in institutional statement neutrality adoptions occurring on campuses across North America is a move that strengthens open inquiry and viewpoint diversity,” reads the Heterodox Academy report. “In times of social or political controversy, colleges and universities have a unique chance to elevate public debate when they refrain from taking their own stances and instead empower the varied voices of their communities.”
Not everyone supports the shift toward institutional neutrality among U.S. colleges. A recent article in The New York Times framed the change as schools “making it a policy to stay silent as political pressure mounts against higher education,” writing that “the universities are adopting such policies at a time when the Trump administration has moved aggressively to punish them for not doing enough to crack down on antisemitism and for embracing diversity, equity and inclusion policies,” even though the report exclusively studied neutrality statements that came before Trump’s second term began.
When colleges weigh in on controversial political issues, they end up chilling dissenting speech from students and faculty. Instead of allowing a university to fulfill its mission as the site of intellectual exploration and debate, administrators effectively settle controversial questions.
