Coming Attractions in My Jihad Against Institutional Neutrality

Over the last year or so, I’ve written about two dozen posts here critiquing institutional neutrality, and given maybe a half dozen conference presentations on the subject. But in some ways, the criticisms I’ve made so far are peripheral to the fundamental problem with the doctrine. The fundamental problem is that it’s self-contradictory and self-subversive. This latter problem is so obvious, and so obviously fatal to the doctrine, that stating it threatens to trivialize the whole discussion about institutional neutrality: if the doctrine is self-contradictory, why discuss it? Good question. In any case, I might as well articulate the objection, if only to put it out there.

In its canonical form, institutional neutrality asserts that institutions like universities ought (aside from cases of institutional self-defense) to refrain from issuing public statements on matters of public controversy. But institutional neutrality is itself a controversial public matter, and universities typically endorse it by issuing public statements to that effect. Prima facie, then, public endorsement of institutional neutrality is self-contradictory. Meanwhile, private endorsement is simply absurd.

You could, I guess, introduce one minor, inconsequential wrinkle here. The canonical statement of institutional neutrality was made in the Kalven Committee Report (KCR) issued at the University of Chicago in 1967. The Report was itself a public statement on a matter of public controversy. Unless we construe every endorsement of institutional neutrality as an “act of self-defense,” every such endorsement is blatantly self-contradictory. But if we construe every endorsement of institutional neutrality as self-defense, we’re led to an obviously tendentious, elastic, and ad hoc conception of self-defense. It’s worth noting that few if any institutions have ever invoked the self-defense clause as a rationale for endorsing the doctrine. So either we’re led to self-contradiction or we’re led to opportunistic ad hocery devised to avoid self-contradiction. This from a doctrine that supposedly valorizes the pursuit of truth.

The rationale for institutional neutrality is supposedly viewpoint diversity. If an institution avows p, the argument goes, it chills the campus environment for inquiry into ~p, which undercuts viewpoint diversity. No credible evidence has been offered for this claim, but if for whatever reason we supposed it to be true, it would apply to the endorsement of institutional neutrality itself. Campuses where institutional neutrality was adopted would ex hypothesi be campuses in which the epistemic environment for non-neutrality would be problematically chilled, thereby undermining viewpoint diversity and truth-guided inquiry.

It follows that the public avowal of institutional neutrality undercuts the rationale for it. In other words, institutional neutrality, supposedly adopted to promote truth-guided inquiry, subverts the conditions for inquiry into its own truth or falsity. Put yet another way: the argument for institutional neutrality entails that where it’s adopted, impartial inquiry into non-neutrality is unjustifiably impeded. This is a pretty ridiculous result, at least as far as I’m concerned, but the doctrine’s defenders seem to have a higher-than-average tolerance for the ridiculous. So I guess it seems fine to them.

I have, over the last year or so, focused primarily on the canonical statement of institutional neutrality to be found in the KCR. I’m well aware that discussion has “advanced” (if that’s the right word) to the point where novel variants of the doctrine are being proposed, variants that supposedly remedy the (supposedly minor) defects of the canonical version. In the coming year, I’ll be taking a look at some of these variants to see whether they avoid the objections I’ve made to the canonical/KCR version. Spoiler alert: they don’t. Once you come to see what is wrong with the KCR version, it becomes apparent that no peripheral tinkering with the doctrine can save it. It either has to be transformed, or it has to be junked.

Another topic for further discussion: I’ve repeatedly said that institutional neutrality applies to institutions “like universities.” But what exactly is the proper scope of the doctrine’s application? To what institutions does institutional neutrality apply, and to what institutions does it not apply–and why? I don’t think the doctrine’s defenders have any consistent, principled answer to this question.

Another topic: the claim is made that a university’s avowal of p chills the epistemic environment for inquiry into ~p. How true is this? Why think it? On the whole, I find the claim extremely implausible. I’ll try to explain why in the coming months.

Finally, the doctrine as a whole rests on an idealized conception of the core functions of the university as truth-seeking as opposed to activist. It’s totally unclear where this idealized conception comes from, and why (on what basis) its defenders insist on a rigid bifurcation of alethic and pragmatic considerations. Expect some thoughts on that.

Over the last several months, I’ve been taking a weekly seminar on John Henry Newman’s Idea of a University, a book that, despite my strong disagreements with it, has powerfully influenced my thinking about higher education for decades. What’s valuable about Newman is less the substantive view he takes on higher education (which I reject) than the foil he provides to contemporary views (which I find insightful). He has a view that doesn’t easily fit contemporary categories: he rejects institutional neutrality, rejects a maximizing conception of viewpoint diversity, but also rejects the activist conception of higher education I myself adopt, in favor of one focused exclusively on the cultivation of intellectual virtue. Though I don’t agree with him on the last point, unlike contemporary defenders of institutional neutrality (whose views I find silly), I think Newman has a point that demands sympathetic engagement.

The very last paper I wrote as an academic back in 2020 was on Newman’s conception of intellectual virtue as “repose.” The ideal university, Newman argues, seeks to promote a conception of intellectual virtue that “approximates to the repose of faith”–no more, but no less. I was scheduled to give the paper at a conference at Sacred Heart University that fall, but unfortunately was forced to cancel after taking a job in a hospital OR that conflicted with the conference. I’ve recently revisited the paper and started to revise it, and will be rolling out some of this revised material in the months to come.

More on all this in 2026.