Over the last decade, the public has been losing trust in higher education, and much of the decline has been our fault. To give just two examples:
- In 2024, when a wave of protests over the Israel–Gaza War swept across campuses, we couldn’t convincingly tell the public that we were adhering to reasonable and impartial principles about on-campus speech.
- This year, Jason Arday—formerly Professorial Chair in the Sociology of Education at Cambridge University—was exposed for having plagiarized huge amounts of his work and likely having faked quotations from interviewees; rather than take the allegations seriously, his employer first tried to dismiss them as a “vile campaign.” Now, academics are in the crosshairs. Governments are cutting funding and trying to seize control of curricula—as in the Trump Administration’s “breathtakingly intrusive” demands addressed to Harvard University. Administrators are trying to restrict what viewpoints may be taught in class—as at Texas A&M, where professors may not “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity, unless the course and the relevant course materials are approved in advance by the member CEO.” Some of the criticism of academia has been unfair. But it’s not enough to point this out: it won’t win back the public’s trust, nor will it address the public’s legitimate concerns. Instead of complaining, we need to improve. To protect academic freedom, we need to have a conversation about academic responsibilities, the standards to which we hold ourselves as professionals. To that end, here are four principles for your consideration.
- The key qualification for an academic job is ability, not identity.
- Universities cannot tolerate plagiarism and fraud.
- The classroom is primarily for teaching.
- Universities may not punish speech merely for being offensive or harmful. Now let me explain why I see each of these as essential. I don’t claim that they are sufficient, only that they...