WHEN THE POOBAHS OF HIGHER EDUCATION COMPROMISE THEIR INTEGRITY.

You get the ongoing Charlie Foxtrot that is Hamline University.

The Board of Trustees issues a statement suggesting the university is reconsidering its stance on academic freedom, which set off a controversy. The university’s president issues a statement strongly defending the university’s position. Outside groups—including some Muslim organizations—reject the university’s position.

The trustees put out a statement that might have been put together by a business jargon algorithm augmented by Rowan and Martin.

As Minnesota’s first university we’ve learned a lot in our nearly 170 years. Recent events have required us to look deeply into our values. We are a beautifully diverse community committed to educating our students and ourselves, and sometimes that means we need to make space for hard conversations and serious self-reflection. This is one of those times. We are listening and we are learning. The Hamline University Board of Trustees is actively involved in reviewing the university’s policies and responses to recent student concerns and subsequent faculty concerns about academic freedom. Upholding academic freedom and fostering an inclusive, respectful learning environment for our students are both required to fulfill our mission. We will move forward together and we will be stronger for it.

Taken together, neither the trustees nor the box-checking president look very good and they're, deservedly, being lit up for it.

“We are pleased to see the Board of Trustees taking an active interest in this case. It’s our hope that Hamline might reverse their decision, and we’d be eager to engage with them regarding this challenging situation. Universities can hear out their students’ concerns, and they should work toward fostering an inclusive climate,” said Jonathan Friedman, director of Free Expression and Education Programs at PEN America.

Responding to the president’s statement, he added, “Many are speaking out not to ‘attack’ the university—rather, to protect it. The idea that any one student’s beliefs can trump the honest teaching of art history is a chilling idea indeed. What if that logic were applied to every discipline or subject, from science to world history to LGBTQ identities? Everyone knows that adjunct faculty often have the fewest protections for academic freedom, and that the academy’s cardinal commitments to the open pursuit and transmission of knowledge are under threat. The Hamline administration should have taken this opportunity to take a strong stand for academic freedom and support their instructors. In fact, they still can.”

A number of other advocates have weighed in. By all means go to the article and make your own judgements.

Nothing in that column induces me to modify my judgement that our universities are being run by terminally stupid people.

Cold Spring Shops headquarters is on land that was in Wisconsin Territory before Illinois became a state. We recognize the labor applied by those settlers marking the trails that contemporary Illinoisans use to visit Lake Geneva, the Dells, and Door County, and to watch their teams get owned in Green Bay.