The Adults Are Still in Charge at the University of Florida

Higher education isn’t daycare. Here are the rules we follow on free speech and public protests.

By Ben Sasse

The Wall Street Journal

May 3, 2024


Gainesville, Fla.


Higher education has for years faced a slow-burning crisis of public trust. Mob rule at some of America’s most prestigious universities in recent weeks has thrown gasoline on the fire. Pro-Hamas agitators have fought police, barricaded themselves in university buildings, shut down classes, forced commencement cancellations, and physically impeded Jewish students from attending lectures.


Parents are rightly furious at the asinine entitlement of these activists and the embarrassing timidity of many college administrators. One parent put it bluntly: “Why the hell should anybody spend their money to send their kid to college?” Employers watching this fiasco are asking the same question.


At the University of Florida, we tell parents and future employers: We’re not perfect, but the adults are still in charge. Our response to threats to build encampments is driven by three basic truths.


First, universities must distinguish between speech and action. Speech is central to education. We’re in the business of discovering knowledge and then passing it, both newly learned and time-tested, to the next generation. To do that, we need to foster an environment of free thought in which ideas can be picked apart and put back together, again and again. The heckler gets no veto. The best arguments deserve the best counterarguments.


To cherish the First Amendment rights of speech and assembly, we draw a hard line at unlawful action. Speech isn’t violence. Silence isn’t violence. Violence is violence. Just as we have an obligation to protect speech, we have an obligation to keep our students safe. Throwing fists, storming buildings, vandalizing property, spitting on cops and hijacking a university aren’t speech.


Second, universities must say what they mean and then do what they say. Empty threats make everything worse. Any parent who has endured a 2-year-old’s tantrum gets this. You can’t say, “Don’t make me come up there” if you aren’t willing to walk up the stairs and enforce the rules. You don’t make a threat until you’ve decided to follow through if necessary. In the same way, universities make things worse with halfhearted appeals to abide by existing policies and then immediately negotiating with 20-year-old toddlers.


Appeasing mobs emboldens agitators elsewhere. Moving classes online is a retreat that penalizes students and rewards protesters. Participating in live-streamed struggle sessions doesn’t promote honest, good-faith discussion. Universities need to be strong defenders of the entire community, including students in the library on the eve of an exam, and stewards of our fundamental educational mission.


Actions have consequences. At the University of Florida, we have repeatedly, patiently explained two things to protesters: We will always defend your rights to free speech and free assembly—but if you cross the line on clearly prohibited activities, you will be thrown off campus and suspended. In Gainesville, that means a three-year prohibition from campus. That’s serious. We said it. We meant it. We enforced it. We wish we didn’t have to, but the students weighed the costs, made their decisions, and will own the consequences as adults. We’re a university, not a daycare. We don’t coddle emotions, we wrestle with ideas.


Third, universities need to recommit themselves to real education. Rather than engage a wide range of ideas with curiosity and intellectual humility, many academic disciplines have capitulated to a dogmatic view of identity politics. Students are taught to divide the world into immutable categories of oppressors and oppressed, and to make sweeping judgements accordingly. With little regard for historical complexity, personal agency or individual dignity, much of what passes for sophisticated thought is quasireligious fanaticism.


The results are now on full display. Students steeped in this dogma chant violent slogans like “by any means necessary.” Any? Paraglider memes have replaced Che Guevara T-shirts. But which paragliders—the savages who raped teenage girls at a concert? “From the river to the sea.” Which river? Which sea?


Young men and women with little grasp of geography or history—even recent events like the Palestinians’ rejection of President Clinton’s offer of a two-state solution—wade into geopolitics with bumper-sticker slogans they don’t understand. For a lonely subset of the anxious generation, these protest camps can become a place to find a rare taste of community.


This is their stage to role-play revolution. Posting about your “allergen-free” tent on the quad is a lot easier than doing real work to uplift the downtrodden.


Universities have an obligation to combat this ignorance with rigorous teaching. Life-changing education explores alternatives, teaches the messiness of history, and questions every truth claim. Knowledge depends on healthy self-doubt and a humble willingness to question self-certainties. This is a complicated world because fallen humans are complicated.


Universities must prepare their students for the reality beyond campus, where 330 million of their fellow citizens will disagree over important and divisive subjects.


The insurrectionists who storm administration buildings, the antisemites who punch Jews, and the entitled activists who seek attention aren’t persuading anyone. Nor are they appealing to anyone’s better angels. Their tactics are naked threats to the mission of higher education.


Teachers ought to be ushering students into the world of argument and persuasion. Minds are changed by reason, not force. Progress depends on those who do the soulful, patient work of inspiring intellects. Martin Luther King Jr., America’s greatest philosopher, countered the nation’s original sin of racism by sharpening the best arguments across millennia. To win hearts, he offered hope that love could overcome injustice.


King’s approach couldn’t be more different from the abhorrent violence and destruction on display across the country’s campuses. He showed us a way protest can persuade rather than intimidate. We ought to model that for our students. We do that by recommitting to the fundamentals of free speech, consequences and genuine education. Americans get this. We want to believe in the power of education as a way to elevate human dignity. It’s time for universities to do their jobs again.


Mr. Sasse is president of the University of Florida.


The Adults Are Still in Charge at the University of Florida - WSJ

Challenging One-Sided Discourse and A Call for Academic Integrity

15 May, 2024
Annie Hirshman '24 May 15, 2024 Last year, I took a Political Science course with a certain professor. This was not uncommon for me, as I am a Political Science major. However, for students of different majors, this particular course was required in order to obtain a liberal arts degree from Davidson College. Therefore, this class serves as a lot of students' sole exposure to the political science department. I was in the classroom with a variety of individuals, ranging from the Phi Delt jocks to the studio art majors. This classroom had everything and everyone. Since this was the first time a lot of them had taken a political science course, the dialogue and discourse was somewhat quieter. Therefore, I felt encouraged to speak up in class. I participated often, sharing my opinion on daily issues and historical events that had shaped American politics. I hoped that my voice would encourage others to participate. Sharing my opinion took a turn for the worse on a certain Wednesday morning. As the semester progressed, I noticed that the teacher was only sharing liberal skewed media sources. When they would discuss conservative matters, it had a negative connotation. They often referred to Republican politicians as a whole using derogatory terms, almost asserting that one bad apple was synonymous with the bunch. I discussed what occurred within the classroom numerous times outside, especially with my classmates that were rather conservative. They spoke of how they felt alienated in class, frightened at the outcome if they were to share their opinion. As a natural-born extrovert and rather excited by the idea of questioning the professor, I spoke up. I asked them why they chose to share only liberal-based news sources and strayed from conservative outlets in their journalistic sources. Their answer was short and sweet: because they were the only accurate sources to garner information from. I was shocked and severely taken aback by their statement. Later that day, the professor followed up with an email ‘defending’ their position. Without their intent, they confirmed that they do not “explicitly seek to include conservative outlets”. They spoke of how there was an ongoing movement to tar outlets that were not relatively conservative. They continued that accurate news sources were under attack for liberal alignment when in reality (their opinion), they were honest and true. The professor asserted that Republican politicians were guilty of executive aggrandizement for these efforts. In addition, they asserted that sources such as the New York Times and the Washington Post have been shown to have a very limited liberal bias, if any. As someone who seeks to challenge my own and other’s beliefs, I did some research to see if these statements were accurate or not. I checked multiple sources to see which sources were actually ideologically skewed. The Allsides Media Bias Chart, which collects its information based upon multi-partisan scientific analysis, including expert panels and surveys of thousands of everyday Americans, provided convincing material. It asserted that the New York Times, CNN, and Washington Post all skew left to the same extent that The Wall Street Journal skewed right. In addition, I analyzed the Ad Fontes Chart. In order to analyze their data and rate their sources, their methodology consists of multi-analyst ratings of news sources along seven categories of bias and eight of reliability. Each source is rated by an equal number of politically left-leaning, right-leaning, and centrist analysts. All analysts must hold a bachelor’s degree, while most hold a graduate degree and about one-third have obtained a doctoral degree. It argues that the Wall Street Journal is on the “skews right” section while the Washington Post, New York Times, and CNN are on the “skews left” section. The fact that Davidson supports a professor that only teaches one side is sad but not shocking. This is an ongoing issue at this college. I know for a fact that I am not the sole student who feels this way. Teachers are supposed to teach us how to think, not what to think. Through supporting professors that promote a one-sided discourse, that statement is contradicted daily. Considering that the college routinely refers to the “Davidson Experience” in a positive way, I can’t believe that this is what they have in mind. At the end of the day, solely teaching one side is indoctrination. Davidson, coming from a student who admires and cherishes you, please do better so future generations of students feel both free and encouraged to speak their mind, even if it is different than the majority. Annie Hirshman is a 2024 Graduate of Davidson College with a degree in Political Science.

Why I Ended the University of Chicago Protest Encampment

07 May, 2024
Students demanded that we side against Israel, violating the core principle of institutional neutrality.

College DEI programs can be saved, but they need to change | Opinion

17 Apr, 2024
By Jim Martin The Charlotte Observer April 23, 2024 Just as DEI seems poised to die, there are promising signs that its original goals of diversity, equity and inclusion may yet be restored. Small but influential bands of faculty at Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago object that DEI’s original appeals to conscience got distorted by zealots whose political agendas were less lofty. These professors are proposing reforms based on lifting up students and faculty from disadvantaged minority backgrounds, without harassing or despising others. Recent years have seen a colossal failure for corporate and educational institutions where DEI was manipulated into a war against meritocracy and high standards. Corporate leaders soon saw this was counterproductive. Enthusiasts in academia reveled in it. Some saw an irresistible opportunity to exploit those who, for whatever reason, had missed key advantages of nurturing family, sound education and supportive communities of neighbors. Instead of directing resources to help deserving individuals succeed in fields that had seemed closed to them, DEI got warped into a horrid excuse that they were victimized by others whose success was the unjustifiable result of “privilege,” twisting that word into a curse. Instead of healthy aspirations for these so-called “oppressed victims,” they were made to feel unfairly injured. Their difficulties were attributed to a system that unjustly rewarded rivals, now accused as “oppressors.” Diversity’s contortion was reinforced with conformity at some schools, as candidates for faculty positions were required to show total allegiance to its divisiveness. Equality of opportunity was transfigured into equal outcomes, as grade inflation qualified too many students to graduate with honors. Inclusion became exclusion, with angry suspicion disrupting the vital unity of teams and the community of scholars. DEI even provided a substitute religion with its trinitarian dogma, profession of faith and proselytizing fervor. Its priesthood badgered sinners to confess, recant and repent. Catechisms provided convenient guides for virtue signaling. Excommunication awaited dissenters at some schools where thoughts, words and gestures were monitored by young acolytes. How fitting, for the old Latin word for Roman “gods” was “dei.” Widespread failure of DEI distortions needs a reform movement to revive its fundamental principles. Instead of inciting hatred and class warfare, let’s promote high standards and self-discipline. Instead of blaming lack of achievement on supposedly unfair privileges of others, let’s offer tutoring and encouragement. Instead of rejecting achievers as scorned oppressors, let’s insist that more study time improves subject mastery. It will take fresh commitment to what DEI was originally proclaimed to mean. Or it can degenerate into defending the indefensible way noble ideals were transmuted into divisive insults. My alma mater, Davidson College, should help lead this effort to restore diversity, equity and inclusion as worthy, achievable goals, based on trust and personal commitment, not on contemporary infatuation with cynical theories of identity politics. In August, Davidson will welcome its inaugural Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Fresh from a similar position at Dartmouth, Chloe Poston will find an opportunity to redirect emphasis away from the negatives of America’s recent past to positives for the future. We haven’t met. She may not see the need for deep reform just yet. I can express hope with optimism, since her doctorate is in chemistry, a discipline guided by systematic evidence, not hostile feelings. She shouldn’t be prejudged based on missteps of others. It won’t be easy to get it right. Experience has shown what works and what doesn’t. If she’s a reformer, willing to take on the partisans, she’ll need support and encouragement from faculty, students, administration, trustees, and yes, even old alumni like me. Davidson earned distinction as the first private college in the Carolinas to craft its own version of the Chicago Statement, a commitment to freedom of expression. Beyond any ambitions of DEI, diversity of viewpoint is the true measure of freedom, without which no one has real academic diversity, equality of opportunity or useful inclusion. Davidson’s leadership is needed again. Jim Martin, a Republican, was N.C. governor from 1985-93 and taught chemistry at Davidson College from 1960-72. He is a regular contributor to our pages.  Universities are figuring out that DEI has been distorted | Charlotte Observer
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