Recently I learned that at Yale University a “Report of the Committee on Institutional Voice” was published a few months ago. The committee was chaired by professors “Della Rocca & Rodríguez” and so hereafter, I refer to the report as “Della Rocca & Rodríguez.” According to an accompanying editorial by these two lead authors in the Yale News, The report is a response to “disagreement within the Yale community about whether, when and how leaders should speak — on behalf of the University or units within the University, on issues of public significance — particularly when strong differences of opinion on an issue exist.” As they note Yale is not alone in that respect.
As a non-trivial aside, the character of institutional voice matters to all universities. But is worth noting that the turmoil on various campuses of the past year has not resulted in a focus on institutional voice at all universities. For example, in my home country, the Netherlands, university committees are exploring now the existing policies on international, institutional collaborations. (This is a thinly veiled strategy to avoid focus exclusively on a boycott of Israeli institutions.) That North American universities are primarily focusing on institutional voice has much to do with the disastrous Congressional Testimony of the former Presidents of Harvard, Penn, and Columbia a year ago. Even in empire, the same politics is oddly local.
Since “Della Rocca & Rodríguez” is rather brief, I will not summarize the report (here). (Some of the key issues will be clear from what follows.) The formal focus of Della Rocca & Rodriquez is rather narrow: it’s concerned with institutional voice. In the report this is characterized as “whether and when university leaders should issue statements concerning matters of public, social, or political significance.” Included in university leaders are not just “university leadership (the President, Provost, other central administrators, and deans),” but also “leaders speaking on behalf of other units of the university, including academic departments and programs.” As the report recognizes, institutional voice matters on campus (which is the committee’s main focus) and to wider, outside communities.