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Rebecca Cunningham is off to a rocky start as the new president of the University of Minnesota. Two weeks before her inauguration, she is already failing on probably the most important issue facing higher education today — academic freedom and freedom of speech, both of which are imperiled in Minnesota and across the United States.
It began in June. Under Dr. Cunningham’s predecessor, Jeff Ettinger, the system administration, responding to outside pressure, rescinded the offer that had been made to Holocaust historian Raz Segal to direct the University’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Segal, an Israeli Jew, had made the mistake of applying the same human rights standards to Israel as any other country. The rescinded offer, which prompted national and international press attention, proved a major embarrassment for the university and led the system’s Faculty Senate to vote “no confidence” in Ettinger and Rachel Croson, the provost who had joined Ettinger’s attack on academic freedom.
When Cunningham assumed the presidency on July 1, not only did she fail to reverse course and offer Segal the directorship that he had been offered, but, remarkably, she proceeded to place Croson in charge of two supposed academic-freedom initiatives she announced. In other words, the provost charged by the faculty just weeks earlier with undermining principles of academic freedom was tasked by the president with spearheading the university’s future academic freedom discussions.
Then, last week, Cunningham reported at a special Board of Regents meeting “the University’s systemwide planning for civic engagement for the fall 2024 semester.” Given the expected resumption of student protests on the Israeli destruction of Gaza — heightened now by the regents’ decision in that same meeting not “to divest of certain investments related to Israel” — these are the guidelines the administration says it will use in determining its response.
There is much in the plan that makes sense. For example, protesters may not damage university property or “threaten, harass, intimidate, stalk, or assault others.” They also may not “interfere with classes, research, work, or other University operations.” While I would have preferred the addition of “meaningfully” or “unreasonably” before “interfere” in that last one, these are all, if interpreted appropriately, no-brainers. But there are a number of provisions that are fundamentally at odds with free speech and academic freedom. And given that Cunningham announced her “systemwide planning” at the same time the regents voted on a new investment policy, the guidance immediately presented an internal contradiction.
But first, consider some of what the president announced. Does her administration really intend to prohibit spontaneous demonstrations that draw more than “100 participants”? What happens if 103 people show up? Do three need to leave, thus proving unable to exercise their free speech rights? Or will the administration at that point begin moving to shut down the demonstration as a violation of university policy?
