Universities and Censorship

Definition: Institutions of higher learning that award advanced degrees

Significance: Censorship is an especially sensitive issue for universities, which ideally are charged with transmitting knowledge, encouraging inquiry, and exploring ideas

Universities can experience censorship in a variety of forms, including the censorship of curriculum, research, and speech. In some countries the application of censorship to universities is part of a broader use of the university as a tool for promoting government-approved doctrine. In other countries universities are relatively free from official censorship, revealing a commitment to the university’s autonomy. In many cases, however, the issue of university censorship rests on a delicate combination of the university’s several roles.

The University’s Mission

Although their particular constitution varies over time and place, universities traditionally have played a central role in the development of civilization. The modern university is typically part of a country’s educational system, which is designed to train, educate, and socialize citizens from childhood. The mission of universities, whose students generally are considered adults and for which matriculation typically is not compulsory, goes further.

Ideally, universities carry out three distinct roles. First, they provide a liberal education, transmitting an awareness of the civilization’s scientific knowledge, literature, arts, and culture. Second, universities train their students for some specialized, professional occupation. Third, universities engage in basic research, pushing new boundaries of knowledge and challenging old ones.

The overall mission of the ideal university therefore can present something of a dilemma: How can an institution charged with transmitting the received wisdom also be charged with challenging it? How can the rather conservative task of training professionals be squared with the potentially revolutionary task of questioning prevailing norms? The issue of censorship stands at the center of these questions.

Censoring Faculty

Rules of tenure have been adopted by most American universities to protect faculty from arbitrary or politically motivated dismissal. Tenure rules are based on the logic that dismissal for espousing particular views is censorship. The threat of dismissal based on beliefs provides a chilling effect, thus restricting academic discourse. Tenure therefore has become an indispensable feature of the modern American university. Many countries, however, offer no such protections. The logic, shared by some critics even in the United States, is that tenure rules unduly tie the hands of university administrators. Tenure is sometimes used as a shield by unproductive or incompetent teachers, thus hurting rather than protecting constructive academic discourse.

Charges of de facto censorship of faculty have continued even after the widespread adoption of tenure rules. Some former faculty members have claimed that a university’s failure to grant tenure in itself amounts to censorship. Attempts by some universities to minimize these battles by creating nontenured lecturer positions also have brought some charges of censorship. For example, a former Chicano studies lecturer at a university in Southern California in the early 1990s claimed that his nonreappointment was tantamount to censorship of his controversial views. Many of these disputes ultimately have to be resolved by the courts.

Although universities long have been accorded a measure of autonomy, in the United States it was not until after World War II that the courts firmly recognized academic freedom as protected by the First Amendment. The courts were forced to examine the issue of academic freedom as the Cold War took form in the late 1940s, with the government using the cause of anticommunism to intervene in academia. The US Congress and other bodies moved the balance between universities as a bulwark of the predominant culture and as a challenger of received wisdom firmly toward the former role. Professors were required to sign loyalty oaths, were fired for belonging to organizations judged un-American, and were harassed for espousing socialist or communist views. The Supreme Court decisively ruled those practices unconstitutional.

Censoring Students

University students are presumed not to have achieved mastery of knowledge, so it is often argued that those students should be permitted, even encouraged, to make errors. If learning comes from failures, then students should feel safe to take intellectual risks—for example, proposing an unorthodox interpretation of history. A problem arises when a student’s stated ideas intimidate or otherwise offend other students. For example, when a student makes offensive remarks about a racial group, students belonging to that racial group might experience a hostile environment. An environment of intimidation or hostility is antithetical to principles of learning, which are based on notions of tolerance and diversity.

During the 1980s and 1990s many campuses turned to speech codes, which prescribed punishments for hateful, demeaning, or otherwise unacceptable speech. “Unacceptable” was defined in different ways by various campuses, but in the main the speech codes banned words, actions, laughter, facial expressions, intonations, and other forms of expression that could be found demeaning or offensive to others on the basis of their race, creed, sex, handicap status, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or various other characteristics. These speech codes were intended to foster a tolerant atmosphere conducive to responsible academic discourse and student life. Yet some charged that tolerance could not be fostered by intolerance of intolerance. In terms of legality, the speech codes were a target for First Amendment challenges, and a number of the codes were declared unconstitutional.

Student expression through campus newspapers also has been subject to regulation. Obscene words and photographs in student-run, university-funded publications have long been restricted. Beginning in the 1960s those restrictions slackened but did not cease to be. In an atmosphere of what critics call political correctness, student groups and university authorities have attempted to regulate letters to the editor, political cartoons, editorials, and even news stories deemed to be offensive to racial, ethnic, and other groups. When those efforts have failed, some have resorted to confiscating newspapers from campus distribution points. Such vigilante censorship has not been affirmed by the courts.

Student demonstrations and protests pose another aspect of the censorship issue. Students have led frequently disruptive, sometimes violent protests opposing governmental authorities and criticizing social mores. Although similar protests could well take place off college campuses, attention to campus protests is heightened by the image of the university as a generator of new ideas and a challenger of the status quo. Traditionally, universities have enjoyed a broad latitude in addressing student demonstrations, adopting individual policies and procedures outlining permissible times, places, and means of protest. More broadly, for many years in the United States, the principle of in loco parentis (the administration of a university acting in the stead of a parent) authorized universities to restrict a range of student actions and behaviors. When the age of majority was lowered to eighteen in all states, however, in loco parentis no longer applied to most university students. University efforts to regulate the frequent student demonstrations during the 1960s and 1970s concerning the Vietnam War, civil rights, legalization of drugs, and other issues thus became more difficult. In general the courts held that violent or destructive behavior, trespassing, and the like were not constitutionally protected forms of expression; the First Amendment specifically allows, however, peaceful protest gatherings.

By the 1980s and 1990s the image of radical student protesters on American campuses was fading as students became more complacent. Different reactions to student protests could be found elsewhere in the world. In some countries, such as France, student protests remained common and generally tolerated. In other countries, such as the People’s Republic of China, students pressed the limits of governmental tolerance to the breaking point, unleashing murderous state-sponsored crackdowns.

There are, of course, more subtle means of censoring student views. Since faculty possess power in the form of assigning grades, students might experience pressure not to challenge a professor’s personal views in discussions and on examinations. Such was clearly the case in some countries ruled by ideological elites. In the Soviet Union, for example, Marxist-Leninist ideology was treated as scientific truth; believing otherwise could be construed as evidence that a student did not properly understand course material. Some dissidents were declared insane and placed in asylums.

In the 2010s, the relatively new practice of providing trigger warnings for certain classroom materials has come under fire. The use of trigger warnings started on the internet and was intended to flag potentially traumatic content (that includes depictions of rape, abuse, war, and the like) for those who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder to allow them to make informed choices about engaging with that particular content. In some cases, university professors have chosen to include trigger warnings for class material, with the intent that students who have experienced trauma can prepare themselves before engaging with the material. Or, these professors have bowed to pressure from students or administrators to include them. Advocates say that these warnings help certain students to prepare themselves, while saying it does not cause any harm to students who do not need them. Opponents, however, find that using and being mindful of trigger warnings causes professors to exclude or sanitize content they would otherwise have used, causing unnecessary censorship of what can be taught and discussed in a college classroom.

In 2015, the University of Chicago released what has become known as the "Chicago Statement," in which it committed to protecting and promoting free expression, guaranteeing "the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn." A number of other schools, including Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, and Purdue universites, then adopted this statement as well. As of the summer of 2021, eighty-two universities had adopted or endorsed the statement or a similar policy.

Censoring Texts, Curriculum, and Research

Along with public libraries, elementary schools, and bookstores, universities have been a battleground for the debate over book censorship. Particularly controversial has been the assignment of required texts. The authority of a textbook, promoted as required reading by a professor or administration, heightens its influence. It is critical, therefore, that textbooks be accurate in their presentation of facts. In some disciplines especially, however, there is debate over facts, interpretations, and theories. Even the most venerable interpretations can have their critics. Controversies and censorship cases have arisen over how textbooks handle such issues.

In Western countries, text selection decisions have been made by university officials, either individual faculty members, departmental committees, or administrators. Selection has been seen as a matter of university autonomy, and outside forces seldom have been brought to bear. The tools of textbook censorship have not been entirely within the hands of the universities. Publishing houses decide what shall be included in their products. Market forces influence the type and content of texts offered, but ultimate editorial responsibility is not in the hands of the universities. Textbook selection therefore amounts to choosing from among several options, none of which might include the precise information or discussions desired by university officials.

At times universities have been charged with abusing their autonomy, and calls for some form of self-policing or greater regulation of textbook selection have arisen. In the United States during the 1960s and 1970s the university establishment came under attack. Arguing for a goal of balance, critics claimed the exclusion of certain points of view on topics such as evolution, militarism, and civil rights was systemic, amounting to censorship. Others opposed as paternalistic the exclusion of books for their use of vulgar words. Western countries came generally to accept the principle that no relevant views on controversial topics should be systematically excluded from university curricula. Textbooks including unorthodox views were adopted, and reading lists were expanded.

By the late twentieth century, however, calls arose in Western universities for a different kind of censorship. Coming largely from the political left, some have charged that certain depictions in literature and history, particularly depictions of racial and ethnic groups, perpetuate stereotypes and deserve to be eradicated from the curriculum. Sections of introductory textbooks, as well as a whole body of classic works by authors such as Mark Twain and Rudyard Kipling, have been held up as examples of racist works that only perpetuate bigotry. Increasingly, a multicultural approach was advocated in all areas of learning, especially the liberal arts.

In studies of literature, in which there is so much more that may be read than what can be read, the debate over what to include also entails a debate about what to drop. Some charge that the exclusion of certain perspectives or cultures in curricula amounts to censorship. In the social sciences, analogous debates have arisen over the teaching of perspectives such as feminism, radical environmentalism, or Afrocentrism. The resistance of mainstream departments to such perspectives, it is claimed, amounts to institutionalized censorship.

As one way of escaping this alleged censorship of certain theories and ideologies, some have sought to establish separate institutional bases within the universities. Women’s studies, African American studies, Chicano studies, peace studies, and a variety of other academic departments and programs have been created to provide a forum for ideas and topics that some feel are systematically excluded from the academic mainstream. Even then, however, charges of censorship and discrimination are not necessarily eliminated. Resources (including faculty positions, office space, and budgets) may not be allocated equally among departments and programs. Whether this amounts to discrimination or censorship remains a subject of debate.

Curricula, research programs, and other aspects of universities are indirectly subject to another level of regulation through the accreditation process. Accreditation agencies use a variety of criteria to evaluate the performance of university programs. Traditionally such factors as the percentage of faculty with PhDs, number of classroom hours required for the conferral of a degree, and classroom equipment might enter into the accreditation decision. Toward the end of the twentieth century, various accreditation agencies increasingly applied standards less directly associated with instructional quality: retention rates of students of color or percentage of faculty of color and female faculty, for example. Some universities have complained that such standards are irrelevant to the quality of education, and thus are an unacceptable infringement on university autonomy. Although most accrediting agencies in the United States are not governmental bodies, being denied accreditation can significantly harm a program’s reputation and thus enrollment.

Public and Private Universities

The autonomy of universities is a tradition dating to medieval times. The precise degree of autonomy for a particular university is partly a function of whether it is public or private. Other things being equal, private universities are freer to make their own decisions regarding curriculum, hiring of faculty, codes of conduct, and other concerns. Private universities avoid the conditions that might be attached to state funding, and they avoid regulations and legal provisions that apply to agencies of the state. Private universities with religious affiliations, for example, might require student and faculty attendance at religious services, make signed pledges of conduct a condition for hiring or admission, or restrict administration positions to persons of certain faiths. Similarly, private universities with a mission to educate a particular racial group might restrict admissions and hiring to members of that group. Scholarships might be based exclusively upon race, ethnicity, or other factors.

At a public university, these practices could be, and have been, challenged as discriminatory. Many of them also could be construed as censoring particular points of view. This is not to say that private universities necessarily engage in censorship more frequently or more intrusively than their public counterparts; rather, the legal standards for private universities tend to be more lax.

Censorship works in both directions. While private universities have a broader latitude in matters of censorship, they are less subject to potential censorship from the state. In other words, public universities might construe some of the regulations and requirements placed upon them by the state to be an infringement upon academic freedom. This is especially true for public universities in countries whose governments are controlled by ideological elites.

By the beginning of the 2020s, the state of free speech and censorship on American college campuses had continued to be a prominent topic of debate, particularly during the administration of President Donald Trump. As political divisiveness had increased during Trump's tenure as president, much of the college censorship conversation focused on arguments made by some that conservative voices and opinions were being suppressed, including through limiting conservative speakers' presentations on campus. In 2019, though public colleges were already required to uphold such First Amendment rights as free speech, Trump signed an executive order directing grant-funding agencies to certify that any higher education institution receiving federal grants be properly protecting what was deemed "free inquiry." In a further attempt to protect conservative views and combat what some perceived as substantial occurrences of student and faculty self-censorship, in late 2020 the Department of Education established an email hotline dedicated to reporting free-speech violations experienced on campuses.

Many of the broad range of censorship issues are experienced by universities, including the regulation of books, speech, and ideas; firing and expulsion as a means of censorship; constitutional questions; religious and secular heresy; and others. What makes these issues especially salient for the university is its presumed dual role as guardian and critic of a civilization’s acquired knowledge.

Bibliography

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Korn, Melissa. "Education Department Blasts 'Culture of Censorship' at Colleges, Sets Up Free-Speech Email Hotline to Report Violations." The Wall Street Journal, 8 Dec. 2020, www.wsj.com/articles/education-department-blasts-culture-of-censorship-at-colleges-sets-up-free-speech-email-hotline-to-report-violations-11607467380. Accessed 5 Aug. 2021.

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