English Department restricts graduate admission to Black Studies only

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
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@kaukana, not sure. But interestingly - due either to an intervention by the provost’s office or perhaps just a realization that the English department was creating a bit of a firestorm - they have just cleaned up a small detail on their website. While the Faculty Statement is still on the home page, they deleted the reference to the Black Studies program. That is now included under the Graduation Program admissions tab, where it belongs, along with the following caveat:

“Please note that this focus on Black Studies applies only to the 2020-21 PhD admissions cycle. The department plans to target different subject-areas each year to foster cohesive cohorts of students working towards compatible goals. Candidates admitted in 2020-21 will be encouraged to take advantage of the wide variety of courses, not restricted to Black Studies, offered by the Department and the Division.”

https://english.uchicago.edu/graduate/admissions (scroll down to FAQ’s)

As to the Faculty Statement, I’m not sure if it strictly violates the Kalven Principles but it seems to come close. All statements, political or otherwise, should come with a name attached to it. Maybe that’s no longer necessary for the English department because, like the Borg, they have all been assimilated? Somehow I doubt that’s the case. Unsigned collective statements of this sort present as if they were voted on or mandated. Either would violate Kalven, IMO.

Perhaps it’s best to heed the ending of the Kalven Report for further guidance:

“These are admittedly matters of large principle, and the application of principle to an individual case will not be easy. It must always be appropriate, therefore, for faculty or students or administration to question, through existing channels such as the Committee of the Council or the Council, whether in light of these principles the University in particular circumstances is playing its proper role.”
https://provost.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/documents/reports/KalvenRprt_0.pdf

Perhaps such questioning should take place.

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There is a stirring call to the spirit of literary study and teaching by a prof at Virginia by the name of Mark Edmundson. The penultimate passage is worth quoting:

“The paradise of literary study is not a lost one… Teach out of love, and the students will return. They are locked in a conformist world in which there is only one way, the standard way - the SAT, internship, recommendations way - to thrive. They need more options. They require more, and more various, visions of the good life. They don’t need to hear again what the good life isn’t. They need affirmations, coaxed from the great writers, of what it might be. Give them that, with conviction, humor, modesty, and maybe a little brio, and let us see what happens. The sun rises every day, a beautiful morning star. Why not, once at least, see if we might try rising with it?”

See https://theamericanscholar.org/teach-what-you-love/#.X2qnGy1q3mr

Norman Maclean was fond of reciting the same words, spoken by Wordsworth to Coleridge, that Edmundson invokes as his talisman for the survival of literature in a bad time: “What we love others will love.”

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Zimmer’s response:

"To: Members of the University Community

From: Robert J. Zimmer, President

Subject: Reinforcing the Chicago Principles and the Kalven Report

Date: October 5, 2020

We are at a complex moment in our society, with a pandemic, social unrest, and an impending national election. Each one of these raises serious questions for individuals, communities, organizations, and governments. At such a moment, particularly with emotions high and each of these forces being brought to bear on all of us, it is important that we reaffirm key and defining principles of the University – in particular free expression and open discourse, as articulated in the Report of the Faculty Committee on Freedom of Expression, now widely known as the Chicago Principles, and on a related topic, the relationship of the views of individuals, namely faculty, students, and staff, to any particular position the University might take on matters external to the University.

The latter was the core focus of the Kalven Report, a report of a faculty committee that warned against University positions on political and social action, with the exception of matters that threaten the very mission of the University, its commitment to freedom of inquiry and its basic operations. The Kalven Report explains that the very taking of a position by the University might chill the environment for free expression and academic freedom, and that it is essential that the University remain a place where individuals can explore and hold whatever positions they wish. The report states, “The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.” The principles and values outlined in the Chicago Principles and the Kalven Report are intrinsic to the University’s exceptional capacity to create and sustain an environment of intellectual challenge and freedom, and are critical to our University’s approach to both education and research. For students, this enables the development of habits of mind and intellectual skills that reflect our aspirations for our education, and for faculty, this promotes an environment of freedom and intellectual challenge that enables their research to flourish.

The principles of the Kalven Report apply not only to the University as a whole, but to the departments, schools, centers, and divisions as well, and for exactly the same reasons, i.e., these essential components of the University should not take institutional positions on public issues that are not directly related to the core functioning of the University. Of course, faculty, students, and staff, either individually or in groups, are free to take positions as individuals or as collections of individuals, but this expression must be distinct from expression advanced by official units of the University. This distinction must be maintained, because the process of assessing complex issues must always allow for the broadest diversity of views to be heard and held, and the diversity of views that lies at the heart of a great university must never be chilled by formal institutional positions on such issues.

I have received several comments recently raising the question whether certain actions within the University were consistent with the Kalven Report and the Chicago Principles, or whether the actions were inconsistent with these principles.

Representative of these actions was the recent English Department announcement that for the 2020-21 admissions cycle the Department would accept applications for admission to the doctoral program only from students “interested in working in and with Black Studies.” Because of the questions raised by this action, I would like to address the issue whether this action is inconsistent with either the Kalven Report or the Chicago Principles.

Some of the complexity of such a question turns on what is intended by this policy and how it is implemented. I would like to address two competing views. On the one hand, some members of the University community have expressed concern that the exclusive disciplinary commitment effectively represents a political test for admission. To the extent this was the intent of adopting this policy, or to the extent it is implemented in such a manner, or to the extent it is reasonably perceived by students and faculty as having this purpose, this action would stand in direct opposition to both the Kalven Report and the Chicago Principles. The idea or even implication that there would be a political criterion applied to admission to our doctoral program would be incompatible with the fundamental principles of our University.

On the other hand, this action also can be understood to be the natural exercise of the prerogatives of an academic department to make decisions about the choice of scholarly directions it wants to emphasize in its educational and research programs. From this perspective, viewing Black Studies as an area of emphasis is not different from many other decisions departments often make about their priorities and intellectual direction. Viewed in this light, it is no different from a History Department deciding to emphasize American history or a Law School deciding to emphasize international law. Indeed, from that perspective, the English Department’s action can be viewed as an important manifestation of academic freedom.

These considerations are fundamentally about whether an action comports with fundamental principles that have defined the University’s approach to creating an educational and research environment of freedom, rigor, and integrity. Only after one believes that an action does so comport comes the question of whether the action is wise or not. The lively questioning of wisdom of actions has always been and will likely remain a prominent feature of the University and discussions within it. But it is important to recognize that this is a separate question that arises only after the question about comporting with fundamental values sustains scrutiny and invites dialogue about the wisdom of the action.

The differences between these two perspectives about this action, both of which I have heard, underscore the importance of attention to the Kalven Report and the Chicago Principles, and ensuring that the University and its units take full cognizance of their importance so actions that might be seen as in conflict with them are explained carefully and are implemented in such a way as not to diverge from these core principles of our University. And it is perfectly appropriate for members of our community to raise questions about whether such actions are, in fact, consistent with these principles.

This moment is a fraught one for our society given the multiple challenges we now face. Varying perspectives about our society, our nation, and our University have led many to call for an open-minded re-examination of the state of our society, our nation and our institutions.

This will inevitably have an impact on how we might approach these challenges in the context of our University. As we consider these issues, it is imperative that we continue to uphold the values of academic freedom, free expression and open discourse, as captured in the two seminal documents – the Chicago Principles, and the Kalven Report.

Office of the President

Edward H. Levi Hall

5801 S. Ellis Ave.

Chicago, IL 60637"

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I am generallty cheered by the President’s letter as being an official restatement of the fundamental importance and inviolableness of the Chicago Statement and Kalven Report. The letter further extends those principles explicitly to all “units” of the University. This was previously only implicit.

The letter then turns to the special case of one such unit - the English Department, whose stated policy of limiting admissions to the Ph.D. program to applicants in Black Studies is then analyzed for adherence to these principles. Two possible rationales are given for this policy, one of them as constituting a political test, the other as simply defining a direction for the Department. The former would violate the principles; the latter would not. Interestingly, Zimmer does not judge which of these rationales actuated the English Department. The Department is given a way out, if it chooses to take it. It may have done this at least superficially in that its statement of its admissions policy has been excised from its Manifesto regarding anti-Blackness in literature in the latest iteration of the Manifesto.

However, I am left - as I believe Zimmer himself or any reader of the Manifesto would surely be - highly doubting that any applicant whether in Black Studies or any other field would not be screened for adherence to the politics of the Manifesto. The letter does not address this explicitly, but that is surely what it is referring to when it speaks of the way the principles could be violated in the “implementation” of a policy or by how it is “reasonably perceived by students and faculty.” It says that any such policy must be “explained carefully” with those principles uppermost.

The Manifesto hardly does that, and it remains a reasonable inference that its politicized tenets are the driving force behind the policy.

The English Department is being given some time and some wiggle-room. Will it take them?

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IMO, less wiggle room should have been given, although that might have happened off-camera. The Black Studies thing is a red herring at this point, because the BLM statement itself is a “formal institutional position on a public issue not directly related to the core functioning of the university” (to use Zimmer/Kalven terminology). Zimmer didn’t address the statement, he merely addressed the Black Studies decision. That decision was removed to the safety of the English Department admissions page, where it now resides as a “scholarly direction” rather than a “political test.” While it still might be open to various interpretations, the English Department can say what they’ve been stating for the past couple weeks now: they will admit different academic cohorts later on, no one is restricted merely to Black Studies, and so forth. But none of that matters. Even had there been no Black Studies restriction at all - ie the department was refreshingly devoid of establishing admission criteria for this coming year - the BLM statement itself is in conflict with both the Kalven Report and the Chicago Principles. Zimmer’s explanation of Kalven really clarifies that, and Dershowitz (see comment #58) provides several examples as to how so. Has this fact been pointed out to English during more private conversations? No fly on the wall, but I envision a grudging compromise worked out where the department head moves the Black Studies thing off the home page but keeps the rest of the statement as is, and then Zimmer declines to condemn the department outright but adds that even the implication of a political test is wrong . . .