Judith Rodin — Protecting free speech: the obligation of academia

Each year we welcome new students and colleagues who bring fresh energy and ideas to the Penn community.

As an academic community, we eagerly examine and explore issues in depth. We pick apart one another's arguments, theories and papers because we know that the impact of different views and perspectives strengthens our work. We joyfully seize the challenge to consider society's most vexing and intractable problems.

No other milieu, I believe, even comes close to a university campus for sheer intellectual exuberance. The Penn community derives its intellectual vitality from a fundamental and unshakable commitment to freedom of thought, inquiry, association and expression. We provide open forums for critical thinking and informed discussion. We also provide a safe haven for the widest possible range of opinions, from the brilliant and sublime to even the scurrilous and ridiculous.

As we begin a new academic year so close to the first anniversary of Sept. 11, we continue to feel both collective anguish over the tragedy that befell our country and collective apprehension over what is yet to come. During these uncertain times of escalating tensions and peril, I believe it becomes more important for all of us to reaffirm and renew our commitment to the values of academic community.

These values include unfettered freedom of expression, the importance of civic engagement in every aspect of the University's life and robust, honest engagement with those with whom we disagree.

The next year may put these values to the test as the Penn community confronts many issues that undoubtedly will stir up strong emotions and profoundly serious disagreements among us. Whether we are debating issues right at home, such as graduate student unionization, or those that hit close to home, such as the tragic conflict in the Middle East, we face a very tall order: how do we encourage thoughtful discourse and debate while at the same time allowing all voices to be heard?

As educators, we teach our students to explore issues thoroughly. We draw distinctions between informed arguments steeped in civility and reason on one hand and repulsive rants steeped in hatred and nonsense on the other. We know how much knowledge and understanding our students gain from the former. We despair over the pain and anger the latter creates among members of the Penn community.

I expect the coming year to be filled with the kind of intrepid explorations and robust discussions worthy of this great university and its superb faculty, students and staff. I would also hope and expect that members of our community will refrain from speech, gestures or actions solely intended to rip us asunder.

Nonetheless, we must also anticipate that someone on the Penn campus may uncork a nasty brew of vicious comments that seek to marginalize or dehumanize a segment of our campus community.

If and when that happens, how should we respond?

Some might argue that certain views are so heinous and hateful to a community that anyone who expresses them should be condemned, punished or even expelled. However, if we cherish freedom of expression as a core academic value, then we must resist the urge to use the power of the University or the presidency to silence any lawful speech or flatten any speaker who expresses hateful and despicable views.

Our defense of free speech does not mean we therefore remain aloof either to the pain felt by groups who are the targets of hate speech or to their deeply felt concerns for their own safety.

To the contrary, the University will go to great lengths to provide the resources to support thoughtful, reasoned dialogue and debate. We will not hesitate to call upon Public Safety, the Chaplain's Office or the University Life Division to provide whatever protection and support is needed to promote a physically safe environment for all members of the campus community, including groups who have suffered religious and ethnic prejudice in the wake of Sept. 11.

In the past, some members of the Penn community have mistakenly interpreted my refusal to condemn specific speech publicly as a sign of personal or institutional insensitivity or indifference.

Privately, I churn in dismay and disgust at the offensiveness and ignorance of views expressed by a minuscule number of people in the Penn community. But I also don't believe that presidential condemnations of specific speech strengthen our academic community. To the contrary, they tend to stop the debate dead in its tracks.

I believe we are better off using even the most objectionable speech as a catalyst to a productive, illuminating and inclusive conversation that becomes a forum for reasoned and thoughtful ideas.

Invariably, hateful ideas will crumble under the weight of relentless scrutiny and informed debate.

In recent years, members of the Penn community have responded to incidents of hate speech by turning understandable outrage into creative engagement. Just over the past year, I have observed a passionate determination by Muslims, Jews and Christians on campus to forge a true interfaith dialogue. I know I can always count on the Penn community to harness its passion and acumen to remain vigorously and constructively engaged.

Let's begin the new academic year in this spirit of "spirited" engagement with each other as a continuing public conversation and collective enterprise through which we build the kind of robust and creative academic community we all desire. The academic community of Penn, which persists in the face of rapid and far-reaching changes, will be strengthened and enhanced to the benefit of all. Let our journey to understanding and knowledge go forward. Judith Rodin is president of the University of Pennsylvania.

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