Reviewing David Rabban’s recent book last week, John McGinnis called attention to the distinction between academic freedom and the freedom of speech. The latter concept is often seen as the key to depoliticizing universities, purging them from ideological bias. The idea of politicization, however, implicates a broader question about the principles that ought to guide a university’s (or other social institution’s) activity, and how those relate to principles that ought to guide civil government.

　　In some ways, the push for free speech on campus and the emphasis on neutrality is its own kind of politicization. It is more subtle and less obviously ideological than the sort of politicization that it combats, but in mimicking the liberal values of political life rather than embracing those appropriate to its own activity, the university gives up its distinctive identity as a shaper of human experience. In doing so, it may be part of a general trend that gives ammunition to the critics of a broadly liberal political order.

　　The Politicized University

　　We can understand “politicization” to mean that an activity is undertaken according to the aims, values, or modes of a broader, systematic social vision—not according to ones particularly suited to the activity itself. It may be direct (through government control or regulation, for example) or indirect (when the self-understanding of those who participate in the activity is altered to understand their work in political terms).

　　This latter kind of politicization can take the form of straightforward partisan or ideological capture—razor blade companies that preach about toxic masculinity instead of getting a clean, smooth shave; or churches that sing hymns about politicians instead of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

　　But it need not always be so obvious. This form of politicization takes place when an institution consciously or unconsciously adopts values forged in and for the political sphere as the guides for how it ought to operate, even if they are not immediately applicable to the aims or activity of the institution itself. Consider how, for just about every corner of society (including the university, of course), you can find someone arguing that it ought to be “democratized”; or churches that have, without any immediate partisan aim, changed doctrinal teachings to bring them into line with political (as opposed to theological) notions of liberty or equality.

　　There is, of course, no shortage of the more obvious kind of politicization in higher-ed, from DEI departments to entire academic disciplines that barely hide their ideological purpose. It is this kind of “politics” on campus that has made free speech and neutrality a rallying cry today. But does this approach recapture the meaning of the university?

　　To escape politicization, we ought to have an institution that is guided by values and practices appropriate to the academic pursuit. What exactly that entails is too extensive a question to explore in detail here—and it is likely to be a point of debate and contention with which any given university must wrestle. But it is reasonable to argue that the dispassionate pursuit of knowledge undertaken through specific forms of study lies at the center of the historic concept of the university.

　　Academic freedom, as McGinnis related, is a norm specifically associated with this particular pursuit—a freedom protected by universities with a corresponding duty to maintain academic rigor and a serious pursuit of knowledge. “Universities are a special kind of institution, and their ideal structure of freedom is suited not to the raucous public square but to a forum for the production of knowledge.”

　　The right to free speech, though it bears some similarities with academic freedom, is a much broader principle, emerging from and appropriate to a different, distinctly civil context. It notably differs insofar as it takes truth—and even a good faith pursuit of it—mostly out of the equation. The state should not punish wrong opinions, even foolish ones. But it would be absurd to embrace a general principle that no person should ever face consequences for being a fool. It simply is not the proper task of the state to deal out such judgments.

　　The discourse on campus free speech, for instance, often focuses on how “comfortable” a student feels expressing an opinion. Insofar as discomfort comes from stifling ideological conformity (which it often does), it is certainly a problem. But “comfort” in expressing political and social opinions is hardly a guiding principle for the pursuit of truth. Socrates, at least, was not known for making his interlocutors, including his students, comfortable with whatever political and social opinions they already held. The very mission of education as a pursuit of truth often requires discomfort and a direct challenging of preconceived opinions.

　　The free speech and neutrality approach also focuses heavily on “balance”—making sure that there is representation from “both sides” of our political discourse. This requires us to label various ideas or people according to which “side” they are on, which in turn perpetuates the fixation on where the university fits in the broader political landscape. That only makes it harder to appreciate the university’s own, internally directed activity. Inviting Charlie Kirk to campus to “balance out” an appearance by Nikole Hannah-Jones, for instance, does not particularly indicate that the university has shifted from political activism to the pursuit of knowledge.

　　The widespread protests roiling campuses across the country this year reveal the limits of the neutrality/free speech approach to depoliticizing campuses. It tends to treat all forms of “expression” as valid and protected, even as none of them are officially endorsed. Mass campus protests centered on political and social issues are to be welcomed, encouraged, and praised as a utilization of the right to free speech. It becomes a problem only if the protestors are violent or inhibit the movement, instruction, or expression of others.

　　The first official university statement concerning campus protests that turned up on a Google search was from the president of the University of Utah:

　　I hold an unwavering belief in the power of freely expressed ideas to improve our state and world. I want the students and faculty who lawfully protested yesterday to know their voices are heard and matter. They are welcome to continue to express their views legally and peacefully.

　　At the University of Utah, you have an absolute right to express your opinion.

　　He then goes on to note that all this must take place within the law, and explains the limits of campus protest in terms of the law. No doubt many if not most university statements are similar. And public universities are legally constrained to take something like this approach.

　　A liberal polity may very well be made up of “illiberal” social institutions, in the sense that their activity is not ordered according to the same set of values as the activity of the state.

　　What is missing, however, is a sober consideration of whether political protest is in keeping with the activity of the university. I won’t belabor the point—but it is not. The street protest encourages participants and even onlookers to believe that the relevant truth has already been ascertained. Certainty in one’s beliefs is a prerequisite for this kind of political action. Moreover, the manner of communication is one that treats the exchange of freely expressed ideas” (if that phrase is even applicable) as a matter of will and force—of showing one’s strength and forcing others to “hear” your “voice.” At the very least, this is in significant tension with the understanding of the university as a place of study.

　　Liberalism and the Disinterested University

　　The limitations of the neutrality approach stem from the fact that it continues to have political values guide the activity of the university—specifically, the values of the small-l liberal state. In broadly liberal political systems, we rightly expect the state not to be a “schoolmarm,” telling us what is right or wrong simply, or limiting our ability to order our lives and pursue human goods on our own, both as individuals and in associations of civil society.

　　Critics of liberalism sometimes present this as inherently relativistic, eroding commitment to any higher goods. “Whatever government does not honor is weakened by this neglect,” as one anti-liberal commentator argues. There is some merit to this view if liberalism is understood in the idiom of what I’ve elsewhere called “comprehensive politics”—as an activity that aims to systematically construct a particular kind of society. If we see the liberal political order as an attempt to comprehensively structure all social life, then its “neglect” of religion or—more to our point—the pursuit of truth, in favor of civil peace, social consensus, and balance within society can reasonably be seen as an attempt to lower the sights of human beings, depriving us of essential sources of truth and meaning.

　　This distinction accounts for much of the evolution of what we often call “classical” liberalism, which was mostly a teaching about the limits of the state, into modern, progressive liberalism, which has overseen the expansion of the political realm and the unleashing of centralized power. The latter takes certain principles that the older form of liberalism applied to political life (equality, liberty, neutrality, etc.), and makes them universal and generalizable ones, transforming them into something very different: principles that must permeate every corner of society for it to be considered “just.”

　　Understanding a liberal political order in a more distinctly civil sense—one that sees politics as a limited activity with limited aims—leaves ample room for higher goods. Indeed, one can see certain pursuits as too important to be left to the highly imperfect political process. But that means that a liberal polity may very well be made up of “illiberal” social institutions, in the sense that their activity is not ordered according to the same set of values as the activity of the state.

　　Robert Nisbet identified this as a potentially fatal flaw of nineteenth-century classical liberal theories, one that could ultimately make it self-defeating:

　　The great deficiency of this classical liberalism was its inability to recognize the indispensable importance of the social contexts of individual freedom, laissez-faire, and the noninterventionist state. So consuming was the emphasis upon the individual that the social sources of individuality tended to get neglected.

　　The tension and interplay between different sources of authority (each with its own mode of acting and appropriate values) is the key to individuality itself, shaping us as unique human persons. A liberalism that values individuality and limits the political realm in deference to the choices of individuals will degrade individuality itself if it transforms all social institutions after its own image, leaving society composed only of aggregated, homogeneous individuals and the state.

　　In this way, it is the various nodes of social authority, not the state, that give the unique character to a people and culture. Insofar as they abandon their distinctiveness and merely ape the values of political life—even the relative openness and toleration of the small-l liberal state—they create a cultural vacuum that cannot be filled by individual choice or the state (though both will try).

　　The university dedicated to the full pursuit of truth—not a defender of “expression” or an open forum for a balanced set of opinions—is not so much a “neutral” institution so much as a disinterested one. What goes on there will have social and political ripple effects, but those are not the guides of its operation. The disinterested university has the potential to be a unique purveyor of human goods that political activity cannot offer. It has the potential to instill certain habits and casts of mind that few other institutions value. It initiates a student into a conversation with a cultural inheritance and thus “conserves” that inheritance in a way politics cannot. And in freeing the mind from mass opinion, it “liberates” in a sense that transcends political liberation.

　　Yet today, very few university students are even remotely interested in the pursuit of knowledge. At best, they hope to gain a useful skill or read a few interesting books. At worst, they are gratified that their own unreflective “voices” are “being heard.” This is in part because the university has lost a sense of its uniqueness and has made itself an empty vessel to be filled by anything students, activists, politicians, or taxpayers demand.

　　The foregoing discourse is not exactly a practical guide to policymaking today. Government funding of education means that many universities are also state actors, invariably blurring the very distinctions that are essential to understanding the proper roles of school and state. As McGinnis points out in his review, they are legally obligated to structure themselves according to the rules of the state. And given that many public universities are under the thrall of extreme ideologies, neutrality and robust free speech are likely the most reasonable strategies to pursue in these restrictive circumstances. But we should not be satisfied with this merely less-odious form of the politicized university or allow the slightly-less-politicized university to distort our understanding of the unique activity of that institution.

　　Private universities that have a degree of separation from the state ought to increase that separation as much as possible. And in cultivating a campus culture, they ought to separate themselves from politics more generally, thinking less about what is “legal” and more about what is appropriate to the environment and activity of the university. Some form of academic freedom is essential. And there is little reason to think a university should restrict the expression of serious ideas undertaken in a spirit of conversation and productive exchange. But they may determine that street protest—though perfectly legal—is not an appropriate activity on their campus. As for public universities, the “Overton window” becomes a problem, but we ought continually to scan the horizon for new opportunities to advance the separation of school and state.

　　Any opinions expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of Liberty Fund.