When Peter Salovey, Yale University’s President, welcomed the Class of 2018 this past Saturday, there was a veritable buffet of issues he could have addressed. From declining academic standards to mounting student debt, there is much to be said to the young minds about to plunge into the world of higher ed. But even as academe remakes itself, one central feature remains paramount: free and open expression as the core academic value. Salovey chose exceedingly well when he made a re-commitment to free expression the central message of his address.
Only in an environment of free expression can new ideas take hold. This was the point Salovey tried to drive home. While many schools are greeting their Class of 2018 with sensitivity training and molly-coddling, Salovey challenged the new Yale students to grow up a little and recognize that engaging the world of ideas requires a willingness to listen (even when you disagree). Here’s how he ended the speech:
Nonetheless, I recognize that all of us here, in different ways, might also like to live in a campus community where nothing provocative and hurtful is ever said to anyone. And that is the part that I cannot–nor should not–promise you. For if we are not willing to be shocked, then we may not be allowing ourselves to be open to life-changing ideas, ideas that rock our worlds. And isn’t the opportunity to engage with those very ideas–whether to embrace them or dispute them–the reason why you chose Yale?
Hearkening back to the long tradition of free expression at Yale, he quotes C. Vann Woodward’s seminal 1974 report on free expression: “[C. Vann Woodward] argues that if we make ‘the fostering of friendship, solidarity, harmony, civility, or mutual respect’ the ‘primary and dominant value’ then we risk ‘sacrificing [the university’s] central purpose,’ education and scholarship.”
The report is a fantastic document which, as Yale’s “Freedom of Expression” landing page implores students, is worth reading in full. Its stance is aggressive but on-point – without free expression, there is no Ivory Tower.