Cornell University's Presidential Task Force on Institutional Voice has released a draft report examining when and how the university should speak on local, national, and world events, with recommendations on principles and guidelines for institutional statements.
Presidential Task Force on Institutional Voice Draft Report
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Members of our community — whether students, staff, faculty, or alumni — feel deeply about many local, national, and world events, but does that mean that a university should opine on such weighty matters? Or should the university sit back and allow the individual voices of the community rise to the surface? Can it do both? And when the university does speak, who speaks for the university? What principles should govern this decision of when and how often to speak?
Last year, Cornell University created the Presidential Task Force on Institutional Voice to examine these questions and issue recommendations to the community. A draft report was released to the Cornell community during the fall semester outlining principles and providing suggestions to guide how the president, provost, deans, academic departments, and others should approach this issue. The Task Force was co-chaired by Cornell Law School Dean Jens David Ohlin and Deputy Provost Avery August.
In this Keynote, Dean Ohlin and the Professor Nelson Tebbe will discuss the Task Force’s findings.
What You’ll Learn:
[00:00:00]
Intro: On today's Cornell keynotes. We are tackling a challenging question facing universities. When should an institution speak out on issues that matter to its community? And when should it remain silent? This question has gained urgency in polarized times. Cornell community members feel passionately about local, national, and global events, but should the university weigh in, should it step back and let individual voices emerge when Cornell chooses to speak, who speaks for the institution?
What principles should govern these decisions? These aren't theoretical questions. They're practical challenges. University leaders face regularly and with real consequences for academic freedom, community cohesion, and of course institutional integrity. Last year, Cornell created the presidential task force on institutional voice to examine these questions and develop recommendations.
The task force released a [00:01:00] draft report this fall outlining principles and practical guidance for how presidents, provosts, deans, and departments should navigate this terrain. We are joined by Cornell Law School, Dean Jens David Oline, who co-chaired the task force with Deputy Provost Avery August, and guest host Cornell Laws Nelson Tebbe.
Nelson and Jens will walk us through the task force's, recommended principles and guidelines, and explore how other universities approach these challenges. And in the end, help us understand what's at stake when institutions decide whether to speak or to stay silent. So check out the episode notes for the full task force report.
And now here's the conversation with Dean Jens David Ohlin and Nelson Tebbe
Nelson Tebbe: So why don't we just start, in a very basic way by, getting a sense of the subject matter of the report. , What exactly is institutional voice?
Jens David Ohlin: , Great place to start because I think for some of us who are [00:02:00] really deep into this question, we take it for granted what that phrase means.
But for others who are less focused on it, it , might seem like an odd turn of phrase. Institutional voice is meant to refer to how the university as an institution speaks, , what it means for the university to speak and all of the questions surrounding, when and how the institution should exercise that voice.
So it's really, I think, a reference to the collective voice of the university as such. Separate from the voices of the individuals that make up the university. Now that's a very, very complicated question because the university is a complex entity, it's not a building or, , justice set of individuals,
it's this corporate entity, but a very special, and impressive one. So it's a corporate entity , like no other. But nonetheless, I think there's a sense in which the university sometimes [00:03:00] can and does speak as a collective institution, as a university., And institutional voice refers to that collective speech.
Nelson Tebbe: That's interesting. So sometimes you hear the phrase, institutional neutrality used. I guess some of our peer institutions have used, , that phrase. , And occasionally the federal government has also used it. , It's conspicuous that you have not chosen to use the term neutrality. I'm wondering what the thinking is behind, , the phrase institutional voice.
Jens David Ohlin: We deliberately avoided using the phrase institutional neutrality, even though in some ways I think it's, , a famous phrase. It's, , frequently associated with University of Chicago and the Chicago approach, although I think it's taken on , a life of its own since then. And for many people, the phrase institutional neutrality, I think is a helpful phrase because it means that the, a university should be neutral on political or ideological questions.
And in that sense, , it's [00:04:00] been helpful in public discussion of these topics. But I think our committee also realized that the phrase institutional neutrality is sometimes a little bit confusing. It sometimes obscures more than it illuminates. And I'll give just like two examples where sometimes it takes things a little bit off course.
So for example, there are some situations where the university really can't be neutral. And the phrase institutional neutrality can sometimes lead people a little bit astray about that. So oftentimes the university has to decide what it's gonna do. , It's gotta decide how it's gonna invest its endowment, it's gotta decide what courses it's gonna let its professors teach.
, It's gotta decide what, colleges or schools it's gonna operate. It has to decide how it's gonna, deal with, , patient care at its hospitals or veterinary care , for animals. And those are all decisions that it can't really escape. And so neutrality sometimes [00:05:00] confuses , that question the other.
A way in which I think institutional neutrality can confuse the issue is that neutrality sort of focuses on a state of mind. And really what we really wanna focus on is this question of action, which is how does the university exercise its voice? And that's more of a question, not of , a state of mind, a of a political orientation.
It's more a question of, well, what should the university do? How does it make its decision about when to speak? And we really wanted to foreground that in terms of our guidance rather than focusing on this more mental question of, neutrality.
Nelson Tebbe: How did, , this effort at Cornell to formulate a policy on institutional voice, , come about?
Jens David Ohlin: , It's helpful to get into that, history here. So our charge came from the president and the provost. In April, , which is only a , few months ago, and we were tasked with looking at the entire question of [00:06:00] institutional voice, , looking at, , when the university should speak, who should speak for the university, , what principles should guide the university, , in, determining, , when and how it should speak.
And we were tasked with, coming up with a process for, , conducting those conversations, holding listening sessions. We, , sent out a survey. We received a voluminous number of, responses to our . Survey. We received emails. Some of them were, , a couple sentences long.
Some of them were memoranda, , five pages long with really detailed suggestions and analysis of this question. And we. Read every single one of them in pretty intense detail and deliberated on them. But stepping back for a second, , why were we given this charge? I think there was a sense, , that we were in really fraught territory in higher education because statements by universities [00:07:00] had kind of gotten out of hand and everyone was somewhat dissatisfied with the current landscape.
Now, people maybe had different views about how to solve this problem. People might have been dissatisfied in different ways and contradictory ways. Some people wanted more, some people wanted less. But I think there was a broad recognition that the current, framework that universities were using. Was not working.
And there was strangely, ironically, I think a lot of shared agreement that this is something that needed to be looked at and analyzed, and thought and rethought very deeply because there was just so much dissatisfaction. Just speaking , from personal experience as a dean, , when statements were issued at the law school by my desk.
. Instead of it, , generating enthusiasm or kind of lowering the temperature, it inevitably made people more upset rather than less upset whenever a statement was issued. So something was going wrong. And so I think that's what was [00:08:00] the impetus behind, you know, a presidential task force to look at this question.
Nelson Tebbe: . Well, let's look at the, , guidelines, the report that you've produced, , it's just a draft report. I know you're still collecting, , comments about it and, , seeking to improve it. , But one of its characteristics just at a very high level of abstraction is that , it's very self-consciously kind of mission-centric.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah.
Nelson Tebbe: And , I just wonder what you mean by that. What is the philosophy of the report , at a high level?
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah. Thanks for asking that question that way. 'cause I think that this notion of mission-centric voice was. Really at the heart of the report, that was really what we were trying to foreground.
And in some ways this kind of links up to your prior question about institutional neutrality., We were trying to, , de-emphasize neutrality and, , push a mission centric conception of voice to the forefront. And in some ways those might seem [00:09:00] like polar opposites, but I actually think that they're somewhat complimentary and actually the same idea, but just viewed from different perspectives,
so institutional neutrality, I think, can often seem like a very negative description of, what could also just be described as a mission, , centric conception , of voice. So neutrality says, well try and be as neutral as possible and don't talk about certain things. So it's just like very negative.
And I think talking about our mission is meant to say the same thing, but on it from a more positive side , of the coin. So really the university should talk about things that are related to its mission. And when we're outside of the ambit of the university's mission, then I think we need to be, more careful and more circumspect and more restrained.
Now that of course gets into a, deeper question about what the mission of the university is. There's a lot to be said there, but I'll just say one thing to get the ball rolling. Our task force was [00:10:00] really not. Charged with, nor was it appropriate for us to reconceive what the mission of the university is or what the mission of Cornell is.
That wasn't, I think, , within our jurisdiction. , It's a little bit above our pay grade, so to speak. , And we were suggesting that whatever the mission of the university is, that should be the guiding principle behind the exercise of the institutional voice. It should be directly tied to the institution's mission.
Now, luckily, the university already has a mission. We have a mission statement. It's a very broad mission. It's, , articulated on our website. It was a formerly adopted by the board of trustees. So luckily , we weren't operating in a vacuum where we had to make up what the mission is.
There is already a mission. One thing I would say about the mission of the university is, obviously research and teaching are really important. As a core sort of feature of our mission. But research and teaching doesn't exhaust our mission. Our mission is a little bit [00:11:00] more complicated than just research and teaching and to just give some, good examples of that.
We operate an entire hospital in New York City,, devoted to patient care. It's connected to research and teaching 'cause it's teaching hospital, it's a research hospital, but also engages in patient care. We have a veterinary hospital that does animal, , clinical care on Ithaca, where a land grant institution that operates cornell Cooperative Extension offices in every county in New York State doing, public engagement to fulfill our land grant mission. And all of those I think are very much, , at the core of the university's mission. And, , so it's actually a very, very complicated question to sort of provide a complete description of what the university's mission is.
Nelson Tebbe: . It reminds me of the way debates have evolved around, , the neutrality of democratic governments. , There was once a time when I think people used to like to say that. Liberal democracy should remain neutral as to questions of the good life. And then I think there was an evolution of that debate where people said, no, well [00:12:00] actually there are values that, , that democracies have to really sort of stick by, including the value of individual freedom itself, right. And the ability of
Jens David Ohlin: yeah,
Nelson Tebbe: individuals to dissent. , That is a value. It's a value that protects pluralism rather than shutting it down. I see a similar kind of development in the, , thinking, not just here at Cornell, but nationally on questions of,, university voice.
Jens David Ohlin: I think that's right.
Nelson Tebbe: So when someone's deciding, you know, a leader of the university is deciding whether to exercise the capacity to speak on pressing national issues of the day, , what criteria should they consider?
Jens David Ohlin: Our, , report recommends that the university as well as. , A university leader who's gonna speak for the institution like a president or a provost, should really be focused on the university's mission, values, and functions, and should consider whether or not the [00:13:00] issue that they might be talking about, would directly impact the exercise or execution of the university's values, mission and functions.
And that, , language I think of directly impacting is really at the core of our kind of recommendation or best practice that we're trying to suggest to the community. It's not enough for, , the issue being,, tangentially related, , to how we exercise our, , affairs on campus. But really the question is.
Okay. Is this topic something that directly impacts the execution of our mission and therefore it's required for us to, to speak on? Or is the connection really, really distant? I think it's rarely the case that something that you wanna speak on is gonna be far afield from the mission of the university.
So I think a lot of the application of our, , [00:14:00] recommendations is gonna come down to some line drawing exercises, inevitably, in terms of how closely something is connected to the mission of the university. And that's why we used the word directly in the report, that the issue directly impacts the university's mission is really meant to suggest all other things being equal, a really tight connection.
Nelson Tebbe: So it's interesting that the report, , mentions this first criteria of directly affecting the university's mission, but then adds a second circumstance in which, university's leaders might speak, which is, , if the issue that they're addressing directly affects. So again, the directness is important, but this time, background conditions that kind of make it possible for the university to function.
Yeah, and you give some examples, , I'm not quoting directly here, but it's the conditions of democracy in our society, , the existence of free speech and so forth. Can you speak to that a little bit? , Why not just leave it at the first criteria? Why did you add the second?
Jens David Ohlin: , I think this was probably the most, complicated aspect of our discussions. And I think we [00:15:00] were, , trying to be thoughtful and nuanced in recognizing. Two essential truths here. , One, we want to really limit the institution's voice to things that are happening on campus, and not get distracted by world events or national events that are really unconnected to the operation of the university.
That's certainly true, and we were really motivated by this truth. But on the other hand, we were also acutely aware that the university doesn't operate in a vacuum. , And if , anything over the last year has been clear, , with the complexities of our negotiations with the federal government, we're embedded in a country, , in a regulatory environment, in a legal environment, in a political environment, and that environment.
, Impacts our ability to get our job done in terms of research and teaching and impact. So there's no question that the background conditions , of the world, , [00:16:00] impact us just as they would impact anyone else, , laws that would impact a corporation or a private citizen impact us.
Everything from, immigration issues having to do with, , that affect , our students getting visas, tax issues, , grants, , those are just like three simple examples, but there would be hundreds of others. , We're subject to, , the conditions of the environment that we operate in and, , those can impact our mission in , very powerful ways.
And. We wanted to suggest that those could be legitimate moments for the university to speak, and in fact they might even be necessary. Now, that doesn't mean that the university should run off willy-nilly and discuss everything that's related to, , democracy or if the rule of law, but if something flowing from one of those areas really prevents the university from executing on its legitimate mission, then I think it's fair game for the university to speak about them.
Nelson Tebbe: It's very interesting and quite persuasive. Although I think on the question of necessity, I think the report, , [00:17:00] says, , if those two conditions are met or one of the two commissions are met, then it's permissible for university leaders to speak but not required.
Jens David Ohlin: Yes.
Nelson Tebbe: Do you think there are situations in which it might be actually required?
Jens David Ohlin: No, I don't think there, I don't think it is. Although, , it's interesting. , We received a lot of opinions on this topic, and I think we outline a series of criteria. To suggest when the university can speak. And we, as you point out, note that the university is never required to speak. And I think one of the reasons why we said that is because the, , question of the university speaking is really a strategic question and it should be guided by the strategy and the strategic considerations of the moment.
So there are certain circumstances when the university would be well-served by speaking loudly and speaking often on a particular topic. And then there's other circumstances where the [00:18:00] university, I think would be better advised to speak, less often and more quietly. And then there might be further situations where really the best course of actions strategically is just.
Silence. And I think it's , for the university to figure that out given the particular challenge that it's facing in the moment.
Nelson Tebbe: . I think quite closely related to that is, , another theme of the report, which I thought was, , interesting and quite, , admirable, which is , a principle of restraint or, , sometimes it's called a, a principle of prudence.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah.
Nelson Tebbe: , What do you see as that principle requiring, , , , how should someone think about it when they're, , taking into account the more granular decisions around, , whether, the, , topic sort of fits criteria A or criteria B.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah. This is very much related to one of your earlier questions about institutional neutrality and why not use the phrase institutional neutrality. And we thought that institutional restraint. Provides a [00:19:00] better guide for action than something like institutional neutrality.
'cause institutional neutrality sounds like a state of mind, whereas institutional restraint is more like a principle to guide your action. So when you're thinking about, Hey, should I speak about this or not? Restraint is meant to, , provide you with something very, very concrete about how you should make that decision.
, And I think it's to suggest that there should be a thumb on the scale in favor of being careful, , and recognizing the special dangers associated with speaking too loudly on a topic that really is not appropriate , for the university , to speak on. And so I think restraint is designed to really get people to think about, , the real costs associated with.
Speaking too much on, on those questions. There's nothing magical though about that phrase restraint. I think it's, a phrase that other universities have used in talking about [00:20:00] institutional voice. But, you could just as well talk about prudence or reasonable circumspection.
, And I think we use multiple phrases , , in the document, but restraint I think is as good as any other in terms of articulating that principle.
Nelson Tebbe: Yeah. , Let's talk a little bit about some of the possible costs of , the university exercising its voice. , The Calvin Report, which is, , produced by the University of Chicago in 1967 is maybe the most famous Yeah.
Of the statements on institutional. Neutrality or voice that we have, , articulates a tension between institutional speech and individual speech. So the report suggests that messaging by the university, this is the Calvin report, can risk what it calls centering of the freedom of its constituents. Yeah.
Faculty or students or even staff. , You could think of this as, , something like a separation of church and state principle, but for the university, , sometimes in the report, [00:21:00] you describe this as, , the danger of, , crowding out speech. , How did you, , grapple with that tension , and what ways in which did you seek to resolve it in the report?
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah. , Resolve it. I'm not sure you can ever resolve the tension between, , individual and collective voice. , In many ways I think that's the kind of core tension that animates this entire exercise, right? , This whole thing, this whole conversation, this whole problem is about what is the relationship between the individual member of the university community and the university as such, and how does the university's voice intersect with the individual's voice?
And how do we make sure that the university speaks in a way that, , allows those individual voices to flourish? , Just to step back for a second, the university is a collective that's a little bit different from a corporation or other. , Collective, , which have a different purpose in mind,
corporations are meant to, , , accomplish a particular [00:22:00] business objective. , You can think of other collectives too, like a trade union or a political party. , There's lots of different collectives out there. But a university I think is a very special one because it's designed to bring individuals together to engage in things like research and teaching and other forms of impact, , clinical patient care.
But it's meant to create these communities where there's gonna be a lot of discussion and a lot of conversation., Whether it's, , scholarship teaching in the classroom, conversations within the , community conversations between members that are inside the community and those who are on the outside of the community.
But like the whole of the university is fostering and developing and adding nuance and sophistication to , these conversations. And so I think universities have to be especially mindful of the dangers associated with the university's voice crowding out or, , chastening, , or, , eliminating some way the voices of [00:23:00] individuals , within the community.
We wanna make sure that individuals feel comfortable. Talking about the things they need to talk about, , on very difficult, contentious, messy subjects that people intensely disagree with. Now, one thing though, , I would hasten to add, , the Calvin report, , might go a little bit too far on this point because just because a university says X or a collective says yes, doesn't mean that an individual, , can never disagree with it,
so I don't think it's as simple as saying, oh, because the university has spoken about something, or because the collective has spoken about something, that the individual then is never gonna speak about it. , People I think, have to get comfortable with disagreement, and that's the whole point of these, , conversations.
, People oftentimes have to be . Even comfortable with disagreement when there's power, , dynamics, , like for example, you can be even in a, as a student or a faculty member, you could be in a group [00:24:00] talking with 10 people and nine people can say X. And the one person has to be thoughtful and say, well, actually I disagree,
Mm-hmm. . But all of that being said, I think there is a real concern that if a university speaks too often, too much on topics that really the individuals of the, , community should be talking about, that something has gone wrong in that process. And I think the Calvin report, I think gestures in the right direction , on that point.
Nelson Tebbe: Yeah. The Calvin report famously says the institution, I mean, not quoting directly, but something like the institution is a home for critics. It is not itself a critic. . But I think the reason for that, , is that, , Calvin , and the rest of the members of the committee were worried, , that if the university, , took critical positions that could, , chill or silence, , the voices of individual constituents in the university. At least that's one of the reasons.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah. And I, I think that was right about that. I mean, the university should not be a critic. , The only sort of footnote I would add to that is that the university does have to do certain things that I wouldn't call it being a critic, and it has to make certain decisions.
, [00:25:00] The university has to decide, , what is gonna do in its hospital or what kind of patient care it's gonna offer. . And you don't see any glimpse of that in the Calvin Report. Unfortunately, the Calvin Report seems to think that all a university does is research and teaching, but
that's obviously not the case. And when the university does those things, it's not the university being, , a critic, but it's basically deciding how it's gonna, how it's gonna operate, and some of that, to a certain extent , is just inevitable.
Nelson Tebbe: What was the composition of the committee? The total number of members of the committee who had administrative appointments, faculty members, , were there any tenure track faculty, any adjuncts, lecturers, senior lecturers, student representation?
Can you speak a little bit to the composition of the committee?
Jens David Ohlin: . So the committee was faculty led and included faculty from the Ithaca campus, from Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell Tech. And included, , a, , wide range of disciplines so that we would have [00:26:00] really rich conversations.
, We did not have staff, and we did not have students on the committee, mostly because we felt like, on this question, the major constituency that we needed to engage with and to bring on board , with a new approach regarding institutional voice was the faculty, all members and all constituencies in the universities are important, but the faculty, I think, have a particularly special role.
, We have a shared governance system in the university, but faculty are considered to be the, I don't know, the, I wouldn't say the owners, but they're the guiding force behind the academic and intellectual, guidance , of the university. So we felt like we needed to bring them on board and really engage with their thoughts.
To figure out this question of institutional voice. And then once we did that, we could engage with staff and students and other members of the community. And we did that through listening sessions and through feedback. With those groups.
Nelson Tebbe: And I think I'm right that [00:27:00] some of those sessions happened before you formulated the draft report and some have happened after.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Nelson Tebbe: Right?
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah.
Nelson Tebbe: So now you're at a stage where you're collecting, reactions to the draft report Yep. And revising it in light of those reactions. So I would encourage, anyone who's listening to submit their, reactions to the content of the report. 'cause it can influence the way the final report, , might be worded.
, So we've spoken so far about whether and what the university should say on issues of public import.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah.
Nelson Tebbe: , But a very, , difficult question is, , who speaks for the university? . How does the report address that question? , Obviously the president of the university can speak for the university, , but does the president always speak for the university?
, Who else can speak for the university? What about when those same people wanna speak in their individual capacities or their capacities as academic experts in a particular field? Like how do you address those kinds of questions?
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah. , So let's start with the [00:28:00] president and then the provost, and then after that we can talk a little bit about deans of colleges , and schools.
,. So certainly the president and the provost can speak for the university. , They're the ones who have the, widest responsibility for the operation of the university. And as such, I think they have the capacity to speak , for the university.
, Within that. , Bucket. I would also place the Provost for medical affairs, , because we have actually two provosts. We have a provost, , a general provost, and then there's the, , provost for medical Affairs. And if it's a question that impacts the medical school and the hospital as well, then really the Provost for Medical Affairs is one of the relevant speakers.
And outside of those three individuals, although there are a lot of important members of the community with, intense responsibilities, I don't think any of them can really speak for , the university. The one footnote there, I suppose we would add is that the [00:29:00] president can always delegate this responsibility to someone, for example, a vice president for communications or university relations who, will speak on behalf of the president who speaks on behalf , of the university.
, But outside of that context, I think. The other individuals or organs are not speaking for the university as such. Now it's true that the president or the provost could speak for themselves as individuals. , But we point out in the report that the president and the provost need to be very mindful of the fact that it's very difficult for them to speak as individuals, , within the wider community because their speech will be more likely than not attributed to the university.
And so they should , bear that in mind. The kind of space that they have to operate to speak as individuals is very, very limited because of how closely associated they are to, the [00:30:00] university
Nelson Tebbe: yeah. I'm curious about that , and I think it's been, something people have been wondering about. Can you, as the dean of the law school issue a statement on, , an issue of national import? Under what conditions should you coordinate with the university?
, How do we think about that?
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah, so what we say in the report is that deans of colleges or schools within the university, like the law school or the, college of Arts and Sciences, or the School of Public Policy, they cannot speak for the university because only the president and provost can speak for the university, but they can speak for their school.
But we point out that they should be very restrained in. Exercising that collective voice on behalf of their college or school. And so really that decision should be really tied directly to the mission of their college and school. And whether or not, that question or that issue is really necessary for them to speak on because it, it goes to the core of , the mission of their college.[00:31:00]
Outside of that context, , the dean of a college or school should not be speaking on behalf , of their college. , I think this is a mirror image to the same issue at the university level. The president and the provost should be restrained and not speak about issues that are unrelated
to the university.
And in the same way a college dean should be restrained and not speak about some national event or international event that's unrelated to the operation , of their college. Now, where things get a little bit more complicated is that. College deans are professors, just like other professors, and they have scholarly expertise and they are sometimes engaged in the classroom.
They might teach a class, they might continue to publish, they might write a book, because they're scholars and they're appointed as deans because they were scholars and continue to be scholars. They might write a journal article, they might write an op-ed article that, seeks to translate those [00:32:00] scholarly insights for a wider audience.
So they might write an op-ed article in the New York Times, or, , write a blog post summarizing one of their academic arguments. So this I think is a very fraught question and what we say in the report is that. When college deans seek to speak as a, teacher or as a research scholar, they should be mindful of the fact that they need to emphasize that they're speaking as an individual rather than as a dean on behalf of their college.
And they should be mindful of the fact that there could be, you know, a lot of confusion about this from the audience perspective.
Nelson Tebbe: , Yeah, that seems right. , The report emphasizes that individuals retain, , the right to speak. , So faculty, staff, students, alums, , , that, , their speech is outside the scope of the report.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah.
Nelson Tebbe: , But what about the faculty acting collectively? , If the faculty of the law school or, , the Department of [00:33:00] English wish to get together and issue a statement, . How do you think about that? , What are the best practices around it? What are procedural sort of recommendations? , Do they have to satisfy the two criteria?
, But even then, are there concerns? , Can you speak to that, um, issue?
Jens David Ohlin: I think there's two important parts of that question. So let me just , break them up slightly and, , just take the first kind of predicate part of your question first, where you talked about faculty , or students speaking as individuals, , just on their own.
That's something that we did not, , issue guidance on. And that was not within our jurisdiction, so to speak, or our charge. And I think, I just want to acknowledge that it's a very, very fraught question. , Oftentimes a faculty member or a student, just an individual. . They have the right to speak.
And that can be incredibly, , upsetting for other people if that's, , decision to speak is exercised unwisely, or someone says something shocking , or upsetting. [00:34:00] Those questions are really important and we don't really get into that , at all. I just want to acknowledge that might be an important question , for the university or for members of the community to think about,
are there certain topics that are either out of bounds or what do you do with a member of the community who says something that's shocking or upsetting? But that's not really, , for us to, , as a task force to, to address. Now, to your direct question, what about when the, , groups decide to speak together?
, Like what about a group of students, , or a group of faculty? What if an academic department decides that it wants to, , issue a statement? I think one of the things that we, , really highlighted in the department is that the same tension between the individual and the collective can show up here,
so just as there's a complicated relationship between the university as a collective and individuals, even within a subunit like an academic department or an [00:35:00] individual, there can be a tension because if the department of so-and-so issues a statement and then some member was a dissenter and didn't agree with that statement, that statement's gonna get attributed to them as an individual.
And that can be a very awkward and difficult position for them to be in. And we want, departments to be mindful of that. So one of the things that we recommend in the. Report is that one. , If a department, for example, wants to issue a statement, it should be tied to its mission. It should be through robust procedures like majority voting.
There should be a vote, it should be formally voted on. There should be a public, explanation of what the vote is, and then also , it should be important for the department to think very seriously about whether or not they could have just issued a statement with individual signatories.
What value was there in terms of issuing a statement that said, oh, this is from the so and so department. Why not just issue a collective letter [00:36:00] with five individual names associated with it, or 10 names, or 50 names, or a hundred names, or whatever. Would that better achieve your communication? , Objectives rather than attributing it to this abstract entity.
Nelson Tebbe: Yeah, those are tricky issues.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah.
Nelson Tebbe: Was the task force influenced by the federal government's stance on higher education?
Jens David Ohlin: , I think it was in the background of the entire enterprise and, , in the back of everyone's mind who showed up to our listening sessions or sent comments to the task force.
So it was the elephant in the room or the a hundred pound gorilla in the room or whatever , the right,, metaphor should be. , But in some sense, , not as helpful as you would think to answering these questions because. We were tasked with figuring out when should the university speak on an issue that's completely unrelated,
that's the kind of deep question. Like, okay, if there's an international event or a national event that's [00:37:00] not really connected to, the operation of the university, what's the impact of the university speaking and should it speak whatever you think about what's going on at the university, , and its relationship with the federal government and how it should handle that.
There's no question that we were very directly impacted by, our federal grants, being terminated and being suspended. There's no question that, that is something that's directly impacting the execution of the university's mission. , And that in some sense is a kind of an easy question and doesn't really help you answer the hard questions, which is okay, well.
If there's an international event going on that's unconnected to the university's mission, how should we approach our voice in that context?
Nelson Tebbe: . One value that's been, prominent in national debates, but also here at Cornell, I'm sure at every university, , has been the question of academic freedom.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah.
Nelson Tebbe: , , is that related to questions of institutional voice , when you contemplate like members of a particular department getting together and issuing a statement [00:38:00] on questions of the day. , That seems like maybe a little bit more closely related to academic freedom than a decision by the president of the university to speak on a national, issue.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah.
Nelson Tebbe: Is that how you thought about it? Or, , did questions of academic freedom come into the discussion?
Jens David Ohlin: In one sense, yes. And in one sense, no. So I'll just circle back to what I said before about, . Really not addressing when individuals can or should use their individual voice.
So there's a question there about, academic freedom of individuals and, , is statement X by Professor X, , in location Y , protected by academic freedom. We weren't really
Nelson Tebbe: right
Jens David Ohlin: tasked with answering that very tricky, , and difficult question. So we were not looking at academic freedom in that context, but we were really focused on academic freedom in the broader sense, which is , what are the conditions in the community that will ensure that everyone [00:39:00] feels as comfortable as possible, exercising their individual voice, and I suppose exercising their academic freedom to make sure that those conversations are as robust and as fluid.
, And , as free as possible. I mean, I think one of the language that we use in the report is that on matters unconnected to the university's mission, the voice of the institution should recede into the background and the voices of the individuals should rise to the surface as they exercise their freedom of speech.
And I suppose you could describe that as an issue of academic freedom.
Mm-hmm.
Nelson Tebbe: Cornell is not the only university that's facing these kinds of questions and pressures.
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah.
Nelson Tebbe: , Many of our peers, have also, , addressed questions of institutional voice in recent years. And I'm wondering, , I think the Cornell report is, I'm biased, but , maybe the finest of a lot.
But I'm curious,, did you look at these other examples and , how did the. Committee , gain inspiration from them or depart from, models from our peers?
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah, [00:40:00] that's a great question. So we looked at all of them. Honestly. We cataloged all of them. We read every single report from all of our peers.
, We paid special attention, obviously to the Calvin Report, which as you said, was issued by Chicago in 1967. But there's been a flurry of other reports issued by our peers just in the last, 24 to 36 months. And, , we looked at all of them, and we thought a lot about all of the similarities and then some of the differences.
So if you just focus on the similarities, there's a remarkable amount of shared agreement between them., There's a kind of core that shows up in all of the approaches, which I think goes back to something I said. At the very beginning, which is that there is a kind of shared recognition that the way a lot of universities were operating before in terms of exercising their institutional voice was not helpful, it wasn't working.
And so I think you see that in report after report is a desire to either restrain the , institution or to be a little [00:41:00] bit more neutral or just to do something , to sort of get out of the way of the individual members of the community maybe fighting these things out themselves. So that's the kinda shared core that shows up in almost every one of these reports.
Now, what's different between them is the language is different, the concepts are different, the tests are different. But I also think that, . It's not just the kind of technical details that are different, like each one of these reports gets to its conclusion in a slightly different way. And I think one of the things we were trying to accomplish in our report was get to a set of principles and recommendations that felt very closely connected to Cornell specifically.
This isn't just about institutional voice for the abstract university. This is institutional voice for Cornell University, and Cornell is a very distinct academic institution. We were founded by Ezra Cornell and A.D. White. We're [00:42:00] the land grant institution, for New York State. We believe very firmly in the principle of any person, any study, the way that mission has played out is, .
, Very, specific and unique. We're not Harvard, we're not Chicago, we're not Dartmouth. We're not Berkeley, we're not UCLA, we're Cornell. And, we wanted to, I think, produce a report and a principle that was faithful to that because ultimately it's our community that's gonna be, using these principles and guided by them.
And it's only gonna work if this is something that's, springs up from the, common experience of the community. And that's one of the reasons why we focused on the mission centric conception of institutional voice. What's the mission , of Cornell?
Well, part of the mission is to be a place where, what, find an institution, found an institution where any person could receive instruction in any study. And that's really kind of essential to what Cornell does. And we wanted to not just gesture in that direction, but actually [00:43:00] lean into that and use that as an explanation for how we exercise our institutional voice.
Nelson Tebbe: I'm tempted to leave it there because it's such a stirring, depiction of what you were up to. But, there's one last, , question which we, I guess we haven't spoken about the. Board, did you speak about the board's role or individual board members in trying to, institutional positions?
Jens David Ohlin: Yeah, that's a complicated question and we, I think we could do a whole separate hour just on that. So there's a sense in which the, board of trustees is not discussed in the report more extensively in part because I think it's clearly the case that the board has legal authority over the operation of the institution,
, The board is the power center and it's the promulgator of the rules and policies. It's not just the president and provost serve at the pleasure of the board, but all of the policies that exist at the institution are, enacted formally. As a legal matter by the board. So the board [00:44:00] has this kind of ultimate authority,, and centralized authority, which it then delegates out to all of the actors within the university.
And the board doesn't, interfere with that because, , that would be antithetical to the academic enterprise. But there's a sense in which they, of course, have the authority , to speak for the institution because they have the ability, to regulate the institution. , That being said, the board of trustees, I think is also subject to the same principle of institutional restraint.
And my sense is that the board really, , would see itself in the same position as the president and the provost. , I don't wanna speak for the board now, but I think, the board, , would find an approach of institutional restraint to be ultimately helpful because they themselves see that it's, , problematic if the board's voice were to, use up the oxygen in the room so that the individuals , in the community don't have , the space to speak as, as freely as they want.
And so in some sense, I [00:45:00] think they're in a very similar position to the president and the provost.
Chris Wofford: Thank you for listening to Cornell Keynotes. If you are interested in learning more about the presidential task force on institutional voice and its report, check the episode notes for details. I want to thank you for listening, and as always, subscribe to stay connected with Cornell Keynotes.