FIRE statement: Penn resignations can be exactly what the university needs to restore free expression

Earlier this week, in response to criticism of her performance in a congressional hearing, University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill said the university should back away from its traditional protection of speech that would otherwise be protected by the Constitution. This evening, she and board chair Scott Bok announced their resignations.

FIRE to Congress, university presidents: Don’t expand censorship. End it.

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College administrators should eliminate speech codes and defend free speech in all cases. No hypocrisy. No double standards.

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Penn’s next leaders must recommit to the institution’s promises of free expression, not abandon them. There is serious work to do: Penn finished second to last in our College Free Speech Rankings and has maintained a terrible record in recent years on free speech and academic freedom. Giving administrators who had already been so eager to police speech and had applied such glaring double standards an even freer hand to stifle expression would be the worst possible result.

A change of leadership could be exactly what Penn needs — as long as the new leadership prizes dialogue, ideological non-conformity, a culture of free speech that takes seriously the search for truth, and the process of debate and discussion that will get students there. From day one, every student should learn the value of free inquiry and how to talk constructively across lines of difference. 

Penn must now take a hard look at itself — from top to bottom — to learn what it can do to better serve the quest for knowledge, academic freedom, diversity of thought, and intellectual humility. Students deserve no less, and FIRE stands ready to help however we can.