Penn to limit statements on local and world events in move toward institutional neutrality

Penn will limit statements on local and world events in a major move toward institutional neutrality, Interim Penn President Larry Jameson announced in an email to the University community on Tuesday afternoon.

Jameson wrote in the announcement that University leaders will no longer issue public statements on local or global events that do not have a direct impact on Penn, claiming that the new policies aim to protect the “diversity of thought” central to Penn’s mission. The shift to the new policy, which Jameson told The Daily Pennsylvanian was initiated several years ago, will limit the University’s role in commenting on controversial issues which do not directly relate to it.

“It is not the role of the institution to render opinions — doing so risks suppressing the creativity and academic freedom of our faculty and students,” Jameson wrote.

Issues the University will no longer comment on include political, judicial, or military actions and evidence of discrimination or violations of human rights. Jameson explained that while these challenges are “substantive and deeply meaningful,” such issues across the world are also “almost limitless.” 

“Responding to one issue inevitably highlights issues and groups that receive no message — omissions that carry their own meanings, however inadvertent,” Jameson wrote.

The announcement introduced a “statement of University Values” and a policy titled “Upholding Academic Independence.”

The announcement wrote that the policy only applies to University leaders, including the President, Provost, vice presidents, and deans. Jameson emphasized his hope that faculty voices will be amplified, explaining that their scholarship and research play an “essential role” in public education.

“The frequency of institutional statements has been increasing over several years; the request for institutional statements has been escalating, particularly during the [COVID-19] pandemic,” Jameson said in an interview with the DP. “I think that was the time that we realized that we needed some guidance about how often we make comments and what the scope should be and who should be making them.”

“But I think with time, as we’ve got more and more examples of it and the complexity of the different groups that will hear and receive these [statements] in a range of topics, that we realize that there’s a lot of merit in the institution quieting its voice so that faculty expertise can be elevated and raised to weigh in with data and be a trusted voice,” Jameson added.

Jameson said that the process of formally reviewing Penn’s policies for institutional statements was initiated by Interim Vice President for University Communications Stephen MacCarthy several years ago.

The announcement comes after a year of controversy surrounding alleged antisemitism on Penn’s campus and the University’s response to the Israel-Hamas war. Between September and December 2023, former Penn President Liz Magill sent eight emails to undergraduate students about these issues — contributing to her eventual resignation in December.

Pro-Israeli community members decried her response as an insufficient condemnation of antisemitism, while pro-Palestinian demonstrators and community members criticized Magill for failing to sufficiently address civilian suffering in Gaza and failing to using the word ‘Palestinian’ in her emails to the student body.

Penn’s announcement follows a long history of colleges evolving what they say about local and global events, and how they say it.

The University of Chicago was the first institution to issue a statement of institutional neutrality, responding to tensions related to the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War. Known as the Kalven Report, the 1967 statement argued that neutrality on moral and social issues is how a University can “encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.”

Other institutions have since used the Kalven Report as a model for implementing their own policies on institutional neutrality. In 2022, Princeton and Vanderbilt Universities announced their commitments to “institutional restraint” and “principled neutrality,” respectively. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill released a similar statement later that year.

The push for institutional neutrality has increased over the past year due to controversy surrounding university’s varying responses to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.

Northwestern University and Stanford University released statements moving toward institutional neutrality within days after the attack. In May, Harvard University announced it would no longer make statements on contentious political issues following a semester of nationwide campus tensions.