Inauguration week panel explores hot topics of free expression and academic freedom in higher education

As a haven for intellectual exchange and academic freedom, Northwestern University fosters the sparks of innovation that ignite from collisions across differences.

But such collisions — spanning disciplines, backgrounds, and worldviews — sometimes create conflict. Five Northwestern scholars, whose personal political ideologies vary across the political spectrum, brought a wide range of expertise, and humor, to bear on questions that go to the heart of higher education and American democracy.

The panel discussion — which took place Thursday, June 1, at Cahn Auditorium on the Evanston campus — was one of two academic panels organized to discuss contemporary topics of importance of higher education as the University geared up for the inauguration of President Michael H. Schill.

Play the panel recording.

“If I sought to design a worst possible marriage, it would look a whole lot like the relationship between Democrats and Republicans,” said moderator Eli Finkel, a professor of psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Relationships and Motivation Lab, whose comparison of American politics to a bad marriage set the tone for the kind of dialogue University leaders want to foster among students and scholars who disagree.

“Most of us would conclude that some limits should be imposed on free speech. But where is the line between acceptable and unacceptable speech, and how is that line enforced?” said moderator Eli J. Finkel who is Professor of Psychology at Weinberg College.

Panelists from Weinberg College:

“No one is teaching this in the classroom, but this mischaracterization, nonetheless, is having a chilling effect,” Pattillo said, describing the language in anti-CRT bills as McCarthyism.” – Mary Pattillo, Harold Washington Professor of Sociology and Chair, Department of African American Studies, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, and Faculty Associate, Institute for Policy Research

“The handwringing on campuses about liberal indoctrination is about the ways in which our society has moved, from a public opinion standpoint to the Left. The center of society is now much more intolerant of racism, homophobia, sexism,” Tillery said. “We’ve got to be attuned to that when we are setting standards.” –  Alvin B. Tillery Jr. , Professor of Political Science and Director, Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy, Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Read the full article on Northwestern Now.