Against Anticipatory Obedience
18 January 2025 | American Association of University Professors
As Donald Trump assumes the presidency for a second time, the outlook for higher education is dire. The new administration’s agenda for higher education has been thoroughly prepared by a series of statewide legal assaults on public colleges and universities in North Carolina, Florida, Texas, and elsewhere, as well as by the high-profile congressional witch hunt that within the past year brought down the presidents of three Ivy League institutions.
How should we respond? The University of Chicago’s 1967 Kalven Report, often cited as the source of calls for “institutional neutrality,” declares, “From time to time instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values.” This is undoubtedly such a time….