University Presidents Discuss Open Inquiry & Institutional Neutrality

Recording from Heterodox Academy Conference 2024 in Chicago, June 2024. #Hxa2024
Presented by the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at the University of Chicago
President Paul Alivisatos - University of Chicago
President Ed Seidel - University of Wyoming
President Hiram Chodosh - Claremont McKenna College
Chancellor Dan Diermeier - Vanderbilt University
Moderated by Tony Banout - Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at the University of Chicago

[@edwoodsr]

I would have liked hearing the panel discuss how much influence the students should have on long-term objectives of the university, given that the current students will move on and a new crop of students likely will have somewhat different preferences.

[@cgpcgp3239]

Would have been interesting to have a president of an hbcu on panel

[@RobertWGreaves]

I’m hearing a lot of mention of principle, but very little mention of just what those principles are. That concerns me as a person who used to be a conservative, but still cannot become a liberal or a libertarian. It always amazed me that when protests come up on a campus, that they are opposed? It seems to me that one of the best ways to break up a disruptive protest is to invite the protesters into a public forum where they get to freely express what it is they are concerned about and to say what they would like to say while being heard by those they would like to hear them, but with no guarantee necessarily that they will be agreed with.

[@cgpcgp3239]

I’m liberal. A public forum where student air their opinion would not have stopped the protests. Their goal was in part for schools to stop investments in Israel and companies suppling aid to Israeli military. Students had negotiations with administrators. One administrator was booed when he went to an encampment. I know one school met students demand to divest in Israel along with some other student demands. The students disbanded their encampment.