Best not to say it - Part 2

Blog readers will recall our recent post concerning a statement by former UCLA professor and now Harvard Dean of Social Sciences Lawrence Bobo.*  Here is a follow-up (from the Harvard Crimson):

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra said on Monday that she would not sanction faculty members who criticize Harvard’s administration, forcefully distancing herself from an op-ed written by one of her own top deans. Hoekstra’s comments come after Dean of Social Science Lawrence D. Bobo suggested last month that there should be “sanctionable limits” on faculty speech. Bobo’s op-ed called out high-profile professors who criticized Harvard’s administration amid its most tumultuous period in decades.

Bobo immediately drew criticism from Harvard faculty and free speech advocates, who said limiting faculty speech would constitute a violation of academic freedom and have a chilling effect on dissent. The op-ed backfired on a national scale, garnering headlines and leading prominent Harvard faculty to demand Hoekstra publicly distance herself from Bobo’s arguments.

After two weeks, Hoekstra relented. “In recent days, I’ve heard from a number of you who have expressed sincere concerns about whether FAS faculty can be sanctioned for criticizing the institution or its leadership,” Hoekstra wrote in a Monday email to FAS faculty members. “My unequivocal answer is no.”

Bobo argued in his June 15 op-ed that faculty should face penalties for speech that he described as breaching professional conduct, such as sharply criticizing the University in a way that “incite[s] external actors” or encouraging students to participate in protests that violate Harvard policy.

Jeffrey S. Flier, co-president of the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, wrote in a rebuttal published in the Atlantic that “Bobo didn’t identify the nature of the sanctions he had in mind.”

“But any sanction for the speech he referenced would be a frontal assault on academic freedom,” he added...

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2024/06/best-not-to-say-it.html.

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This brouhaha simply underlines our previous lesson for university administrators to be drawn from this incident: Every thought does not deserve an op ed.