Several high-profile university presidents went before Congress this week and got eviscerated for apparent latent antisemitism. These events, by themselves, are not notable or unpredictable, but I saw an interesting sidebar today in the Times on their attempts at prepping, via lawyers.
Top-level university administrators spend an inordinate amount of their work hours talking to legal counsel: some in-house, some private, but far more than the average faculty member would even dream of. At the level of Harvard, MIT, and Penn, well beyond my atmospheric altitude, that percentage may be even higher.
So, it might seem logical, natural, even advisable, for them to turn to such advisors before testifying before Congress.
But testifying before Congress isn’t, at least primarily, a legal proceeding. It’s always, first and foremost, political theater, designed and structured to score points – a place to display and exert power. While legal advice can certainly help a university official avoid saying something inadvertently illegal or inconsistent (and I wouldn’t say they shouldn’t have done such a briefing beforehand), employing only that thinking seems backward to me.
Why not start with a political, or dare I say it, rhetorical prep?
All large universities (at least the state ones) have multiple experts on public speaking, political science, and rhetoric amidst their faculty; indeed, there’s plenty of established analysis of just these kinds of rhetorical situations and the assorted pitfalls. Why not start there?
The best advice, of course, would have been not to go. There’s almost nothing to gain and a lot to lose.
University presidents are not typically, or practically, moral leaders; they are professional faces, fundraisers, occasionally visionaries, and always bureaucrats. Asking them to weigh in on an ongoing war in the Middle East, or, even just what their students are thinking and feeling, is frankly outside their skill-set. Combining that with the most poorly-understood-by-the-public concept in academia, the intersection between campus speech and academic freedom, well. I can’t think of a university president off the top of my head that would have the skill and gumption to turn the tables on a congressperson at their own game, on their own turf; their responsibilities, experience, training, and instincts all point to moderation and keeping everyone content. Those soft skills have real concrete value, but not in that arena.
Alas, the only current technique that works consistently in such situations is subversion and mockery. Flip the question, turn the tables, counterattack, refuse to play the game offered. Make them, or the game itself, the subject.
Restrictions on campus speech in the United States have not aged well. Censorship ultimately fuels the fire that it seeks to put out. The nigh-eternal patient tradition of allowing students and faculty to make fools of themselves has some hard-won wisdom to it.
However.
The complication now is that it’s become progressively harder for universities to guarantee everyone’s safety. Another shooting or bombing is always around the corner. Whose university will it be this week? This is the fear that drives behavior and policy, and its more cynical companion is the fear of lawsuits. Hence, the ever-present legal counsel.
Our social contract is frayed and worn due to its excessive use as a doormat in the last ten years. Safe physical spaces for real public deliberation, and even the notion and value of such spaces, dwindle. As always, it will take individuals with unwavering principles to democracy and free speech to preserve those spaces – and they will not need to consult with lawyers to do so.