In August, the Senate Leadership and the Provost jointly identified academic freedom and free speech as issues of importance at our University and began a conversation with Pen America about providing training opportunities for faculty on these topics. Provost Serio had previously participated in such trainings. After circulating an invitation to the faculty to attend a Zoom forum with Pen America on March 7, a faculty member alerted us to an incident at a Pen America-sponsored event in Los Angeles on 1/31/24, which you may read about here. Approximately 600 writers and poets have also penned an open letter to Pen America.
We acknowledge that there will be a range of opinions among our faculty about the stated principles, practices and approaches used by Pen America, and we welcome those perspectives. At the same time, this situation is emblematic of the challenges that we all face every day: how to protect the rights of all to speak even when we are in disagreement. While one can question whether we would have asked this specific group to lead that conversation given recent events, the Campus for All program is a separate division of Pen America and, given their work with other campuses, is well suited to facilitate a discussion at the intersection of academic freedom and free speech. We believe that this discussion is an important one for us to have at this time. Participation in the forum on March 7 is voluntary, but we hope that you will join us in this space to learn, to be in dialogue together, and to grapple with this tension, independent of any one issue. We also acknowledge that different perspectives will be valuable in guiding our own thinking on these topics. We will work together to identify other partners to support our continued conversation around free speech and academic freedom.