Weighing in on social, political issues has become a minefield for college presidents

University presidents increasingly opine on the thorniest social and political issues even if they unfold beyond their campuses — from immigration policy to gender identity to war.

On one level, their diverse campuses seem to demand it. A message carefully crafted with help from campus speechwriters and delivered online can instantly reassure thousands of students, as well as faculty, alumni and donors.

But it also can backfire, as it has in recent weeks. The University of Pennsylvania’s president is out of a job and the president of Harvard University is weathering intense backlash over their inability to say directly whether calls for genocide against Jews violate student codes of conduct.

Amid the fallout, some observers — including a group that monitors campus free speech — wonder why colleges inject themselves into these rhetorical battles in a hyper-polarized nation. Does it benefit a student trying to get through calculus or economics to know the institution’s position on the Israel-Hamas war?

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The problem for colleges is that staking out positions on some issues obliges them to do so on other topics with equal passion or face criticism that they are being selective in their outrage, said Nico Perrino, executive vice president with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

“People in America can sniff out hypocrisy and double standards and they hate to see it, and they’re not going to be very charitable,” Perrino told TribLive. “The situation in America right now is very polarized and divided. Everyone is looking for the gotcha moment. It’s what gets you the likes and the retweets on X, formerly known as Twitter. It’s what gets you the shares on TikTok.”

What’s needed is “better understanding of those whom we disagree with and having conversations across lines of difference, and that’s what our colleges and universities are uniquely positioned to do,” he said.

“But it’s hard to do that when you take a stance on a social or political or geopolitical issue.”

Perrino said schools that succumb to pressure to weigh in heavily on tough issues do themselves no favor at a time when higher education already faces mounting skepticism.

“Trust in higher education has declined precipitously over the last decade, and I have a hard time believing it doesn’t have something to do with what is perceived as the growing politicization of colleges and universities, due in part to the increased frequency of writing and issuing these statements,” he said.

His organization points to the University of Chicago, which largely avoided backlash this fall by simply noting the events surrounding Oct. 7 and, without taking a side, telling campus that support was available for those in need.

It’s in keeping with a tradition of neutrality, as carved out in 1967 by what became known as the Kalven Report, submitted by professors there to respond to violent social and political upheaval during the Vietnam War era.

Even so, the school was not completely immune to campus protests this fall over the Israel-Hamas War, a sign of the enormous pressure campuses face.

State Sen. Art Haywood, a Democrat whose district includes parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County, unveiled legislation Tuesday to combat hate speech across the State System of Higher Education. He expressed alarm over the growing number of such incidents, including one that drove a freshman soccer player to withdraw from her campus.

Her dorm room belongings were stolen, including a cherished stuffed animal, and she later saw a video of the animal being hanged.

Haywood said the issue stretches far beyond the 10 state-owned universities, including PennWest, Slippery Rock and Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Western Pennsylvania. He appealed to presidents of all of the state’s campuses, public and private.

“Fix your (student) codes of conduct now,” he said. “Make it clear that hate is not acceptable, whether verbal or physical.”

On Saturday, Penn president Liz Magill resigned amid fallout over her Dec. 5 testimony before the U.S House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Another speaker who drew fire, Harvard University President Claudine Gay, received a vote of confidence from her board of trustees Tuesday and so far has survived the backlash over her comments.

As Ivy League institutions, their heavily nuanced answers to pointed questions from U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., drew a national spotlight, as did responses from the head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sally Kornbluth. She appeared to face less fallout.

But they were hardly alone. College and university presidents nationally found themselves fending off similar criticism over statements about the Israel-Hamas War that were deemed tepid, including the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

One Carnegie Mellon student, Farida Abdelmoneum, said her school’s approach initially was “more of the same” and felt in some ways like the institution was going through the motions.

“Sometimes, there are trends that universities are willing to hop on because they think it’s what they should do,” said Abdelmoneum, 21, a senior from Portland, Ore., who studies machine learning and statistics. “Sometimes, it feels performative.”

In Pennsylvania, politicians including Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro weighed in forcefully, saying campuses need to more robustly rebuff antisemitism that leads to risk of violence.

The issue is now intertwined in relations between Republican lawmakers in the General Assembly and campuses including Penn State, Temple and Lincoln universities, the University of Pittsburgh and the State System.

Rep. Rob Mercuri, R-Pine, is sponsoring legislation to require campuses that receive state taxpayer support to recognize antisemitism and calls for the genocide of the Jewish people as bullying, harassment and intimidation in their institutional codes of conduct.

It’s part of a package of legislation unveiled Monday by Republican lawmakers in Harrisburg that also affects K-12 schools.

“Taxpayer funding should only follow with a university’s commitment to combat antisemitic behavior and demonstrate leadership on campus by clearly identifying calls for genocide as against the code of conduct,” he said.

Rep. Aaron Kaufer, R-Luzerne County, added: “It is hard to believe that, in 2023, we have to say that genocide against the Jewish population, or any religious group, is wrong. These actions are wrong. The rise of antisemitism in our systems of education, both at the primary and higher levels, must be stopped, period,” he said.

The American Association of University Professors has a starkly different take on what it calls “political and financial interference” in higher education in the name of combating discrimination.

It says the Dec. 5 House hearing, intended to expose lax defense of student safety, did no such thing and only served to chill campus speech.

“The resulting spectacle looked more like a performative McCarthy-era witch hunt than a serious effort to improve campus tolerance and safety,” AAUP President Irene Mulvey said.

“Universities have an obligation to protect the safety of their students and to promote a healthy campus culture. At the same time, universities have an obligation to ensure a climate promoting academic freedom and freedom of expression,” she added. “These obligations are not in conflict.”