Full Description
Why institutional neutrality is nothing but an illusion.
Can a university ever truly be neutral in today's social and political climate? Pushing against the tide of universities increasingly pledging to stay neutral about contentious issues, law professor Brian Soucek argues that their promises are doomed to fail—universities can't help being opinionated.
In The Opinionated University, Soucek shows that neutrality is a myth by taking a deep dive into several prominent campus controversies of the day, including diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and restrictions on campus speech and protest. Each issue requires universities to choose a side in what they do, if not also in what they say. In everything from curricular and admissions decisions to their response to outside rankings and their evaluation of faculty, universities express the values at the heart of their mission. Soucek argues that those pushing for neutrality are only preventing universities from standing up for their values, whether in today's current moment of crisis or in periods of political calm.
Both timely and deeply engaging, The Opinionated University calls on universities to dispense with neutrality as a governing principle and focus instead on what their mission should be, and who should determine it.
Contents
Introduction: The Myth of Neutrality
1. Diversity Statements: A Performance Evaluation, Not a Litmus Test
Loyalty Oaths
Viewpoint Discrimination
Academic Freedom
Race Discrimination
2. Distraction and Hypocrisy: Ignoring the Real Threats to Academic Freedom
Student Teaching Evaluations
The Rankings Racket
3. Institutional Speech: Silence Is Not Always Silent
Kalvenist Missionaries
Is Neutrality Possible?
Areas of Agreement
Department Statements
4. Institutional Counterspeech: "The Remedy for Speech That Is False Is Speech That Is True"
Countering Inequality
Countering Other Speech
5. Regulating Campus Speech: When More Speech Isn't Necessarily Better
Quad Speech
Classroom Speech
Coda: Who Should Decide a University's Opinions?
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
