It's patently obvious that the restrictions are entirely to do with the content of protest, namely opposition to the Israeli state, or at least the Netanyahu government. But if Trump is defeated, the US government will eventually adopt a similar positiion, as most other governments are already doing. I don't know how this will turn out, but administrators are going to look really bad. Implicitiy, university managers are betting on a Trump victory
I actually do think some of the wider "maybe we need to stop all protests" may be a kind of "if Trump wins, he's going to use any protests to target us" thinking. (He's not going to need protests to come after higher ed, though. Universities are screwed no matter what, a point that seems to be eluding the leadership.) But these specific regulations are about playing to donors, to locally powerful political interests (Eric Adams in NYC, Josh Shapiro in PA), to a subset of alums, and to faculty and staff who are specifically unsympathetic to these specific protests.
Tim, well laid out. I would say a lot of your writing in this space engages with how college and university leadership has lost the capacity and will to present the campus as a special space that must protect, even encourage, such debate. They may have lost an Interest in speaking with students who express feelings of being at risk. Maybe they have lost any sense of how to deal with “talking points”. And they surely have lost any sense of how to speak back to donors.
I think with great economy you have identified a single thing that has so much meaning, and goes beyond the American case: leadership in academia doesn't know how to talk about their campuses as a "special space"--as something that requires a suspension between, as a thing apart, as a liminal place. Which exposes them so badly to norms about power, governance and purpose that are actively hostile to the places they're meant to govern and protect.
A very fine post, as always. I'd like to speak a bit to the academic misconduct part of the post, as I have just stepped down from being the chair for a number of years of our college's "academic fairness committee", a sort of court of appeals for students who had been charged with misconduct, or, more rarely, who had not been charged with misconduct, but who felt that nevertheless they had been graded unfairly. The latter type of case was rare because we would not hear "subjective" cases: if a student got a B+ and really felt like the quality of their work warranted an A, well, too bad - we had no way to review such matters. But we *would* hear cases where the "unfairness" was reasonably "objective": the syllabus said the final grade would be calculated by such-and-such method, and then it wasn't. Or the professor acted in a way contrary to university policy.
I saw the committee's work as important for both students *and* faculty. For students, they need a chance to appeal what can be a charge with serious consequences for their futures. That is why we insisted that faculty formally document cases of misconduct - it was the only way a student could appeal. If a faculty member said to a student, "I think you cheated on this essay, so I'm going to give you an F on it, but I will save us both the hassle of doing anything formal", then what is the student to do? How would they appeal that? So, we ensured there was a mechanism. Our panel was me, two other faculty and two students, we decided by majority vote based on the preponderance of evidence (not proof beyond reasonable doubt). In the cases I handled over the years, I would say student appeals were successful about half the time.
But our committee also protected faculty. Suppose a lecturer claims a student committed misconduct and applies a penalty. The student goes to the dean and says "this is so unfair, the faculty member has it in for me", and the dean is moved to tears by this. Can the dean, or any other administrator, then reverse the charge and change the course grade? Under our system, no. The *only* way a grade can be changed without the professor's consent is through a recommendation from our committee after a formal hearing and judgement. This is a really good thing, and guards against all manner of possible bad behavior by administrators.
I think those systems are really important for exactly the reasons you outline. I'm seeing tons of freaked-out faculty on social media saying that they're sure students used AI, for example, but when you read the particulars, it becomes evident that some of them have no evidence beyond "I feel like they did" and don't show much understanding of what LLMs can do or can't do. (Or even seem able to think about what the difference between ordinary mediocrity in student writing and LLM-aided mediocrity is, in pedagogical terms). I think you're absolutely right that just letting faculty go with their gut leads to some faculty not thinking through why they know what they think they know, but also leads to some faculty being exposed to legal action or harsh criticism that might be warranted in some way. The system protects everybody when it works correctly.
It's patently obvious that the restrictions are entirely to do with the content of protest, namely opposition to the Israeli state, or at least the Netanyahu government. But if Trump is defeated, the US government will eventually adopt a similar positiion, as most other governments are already doing. I don't know how this will turn out, but administrators are going to look really bad. Implicitiy, university managers are betting on a Trump victory
I actually do think some of the wider "maybe we need to stop all protests" may be a kind of "if Trump wins, he's going to use any protests to target us" thinking. (He's not going to need protests to come after higher ed, though. Universities are screwed no matter what, a point that seems to be eluding the leadership.) But these specific regulations are about playing to donors, to locally powerful political interests (Eric Adams in NYC, Josh Shapiro in PA), to a subset of alums, and to faculty and staff who are specifically unsympathetic to these specific protests.
Tim, well laid out. I would say a lot of your writing in this space engages with how college and university leadership has lost the capacity and will to present the campus as a special space that must protect, even encourage, such debate. They may have lost an Interest in speaking with students who express feelings of being at risk. Maybe they have lost any sense of how to deal with “talking points”. And they surely have lost any sense of how to speak back to donors.
I think with great economy you have identified a single thing that has so much meaning, and goes beyond the American case: leadership in academia doesn't know how to talk about their campuses as a "special space"--as something that requires a suspension between, as a thing apart, as a liminal place. Which exposes them so badly to norms about power, governance and purpose that are actively hostile to the places they're meant to govern and protect.
A very fine post, as always. I'd like to speak a bit to the academic misconduct part of the post, as I have just stepped down from being the chair for a number of years of our college's "academic fairness committee", a sort of court of appeals for students who had been charged with misconduct, or, more rarely, who had not been charged with misconduct, but who felt that nevertheless they had been graded unfairly. The latter type of case was rare because we would not hear "subjective" cases: if a student got a B+ and really felt like the quality of their work warranted an A, well, too bad - we had no way to review such matters. But we *would* hear cases where the "unfairness" was reasonably "objective": the syllabus said the final grade would be calculated by such-and-such method, and then it wasn't. Or the professor acted in a way contrary to university policy.
I saw the committee's work as important for both students *and* faculty. For students, they need a chance to appeal what can be a charge with serious consequences for their futures. That is why we insisted that faculty formally document cases of misconduct - it was the only way a student could appeal. If a faculty member said to a student, "I think you cheated on this essay, so I'm going to give you an F on it, but I will save us both the hassle of doing anything formal", then what is the student to do? How would they appeal that? So, we ensured there was a mechanism. Our panel was me, two other faculty and two students, we decided by majority vote based on the preponderance of evidence (not proof beyond reasonable doubt). In the cases I handled over the years, I would say student appeals were successful about half the time.
But our committee also protected faculty. Suppose a lecturer claims a student committed misconduct and applies a penalty. The student goes to the dean and says "this is so unfair, the faculty member has it in for me", and the dean is moved to tears by this. Can the dean, or any other administrator, then reverse the charge and change the course grade? Under our system, no. The *only* way a grade can be changed without the professor's consent is through a recommendation from our committee after a formal hearing and judgement. This is a really good thing, and guards against all manner of possible bad behavior by administrators.
I think those systems are really important for exactly the reasons you outline. I'm seeing tons of freaked-out faculty on social media saying that they're sure students used AI, for example, but when you read the particulars, it becomes evident that some of them have no evidence beyond "I feel like they did" and don't show much understanding of what LLMs can do or can't do. (Or even seem able to think about what the difference between ordinary mediocrity in student writing and LLM-aided mediocrity is, in pedagogical terms). I think you're absolutely right that just letting faculty go with their gut leads to some faculty not thinking through why they know what they think they know, but also leads to some faculty being exposed to legal action or harsh criticism that might be warranted in some way. The system protects everybody when it works correctly.