The Enormous Gifts and Great Responsibilities of the Chicago Principles for Members of our Community
Dear Members of the University Community,
The Chicago Principles protect the voice of each and every member of our community, inviting all to listen and to engage in a collective dialogue. The sum of this dialogue, noisy and fraught though it may sometimes be, is a kind of gift that we offer to each other through our considered participation. I write to remind you that the inheritance of our university’s environment of free expression comes with serious responsibilities.
This is particularly true during times marked by intense disagreement when individuals in our community are experiencing profound grief and struggle. In moments such as these, the ability to speak freely across difference is more important than ever. At the University of Chicago, your voice is protected.
Perhaps the greatest aspect of the gifts we are endowed is that we are called to approach even the most difficult conversations with humility, and to see the humanity in other persons with whom we may disagree very deeply. No human being is just a symbol, and I hope that you will be skeptical of any call to objectify persons as merely an expression of a concept. The University is a community dedicated to opening the door to seeing others with compassion and learning to reason together. The Chicago Principles keep the door open.
Ours is a culture built upon a fundamental commitment to place evidence, reason, logic, and rigor over authority, tradition, ideology, or dogma. The University can only achieve this vision when the questioning of ideas and opinions flourishes. As president, I honor the longstanding precedent that authority does not establish truth for the totality of the institution; rather, it is the imperative of individuals within the University to seek truth without being limited by authority. This institutional neutrality is essential to vesting freedom of speech in our faculty members and students.
In addition to the gifts of free inquiry and expression, together we have important responsibilities for practicing and protecting the University’s speech environment. In the classroom, faculty and instructors strive to develop in students the skills of reason, of learning how to know, not what to know, rather than seeking to impose an ideological view or limit the expression of student viewpoints. In this way, students become equipped with the intellectual resources to deconstruct and reject faulty ideas when exposed to them.
Protests and demonstrations are an essential part of our culture of free expression, and within the University are protected as essential venues for truth seeking. History is full of examples where protests have helped to shape new understanding in society, disrupting prior convention. Provided you are complying with the University policies on protest and demonstration, you may join in congress with others in protest and express your views.
In any venue, no member of our community may shout down or seek to prevent the protected expression of those with whom they disagree. You may not tear down a poster. You may not seek to intimidate or threaten another person, or prevent them from hearing an invited speaker. These are egregious offenses against our community. We have policies and processes for guiding community norms, reporting instances that require investigation, and disciplinary action when needed. Our Dean of Students in the University will share more about those policies and processes with students later today.
Our environment of free expression is a gift, and I urge each of you to honor and utilize our gifts responsibly so that we may all deepen our understanding.
Sincerely,
Paul
-------
Paul Alivisatos
President