The following are the full remarks presented by members of the Board of Regents who spoke at their Oct. 17 meeting regarding a bylaw outlining the university’s policy of institutional neutrality.

Regent Jordan Acker

I want to say first of all to the faculty, to the committee that oversaw this I really appreciate the work they did on this, and I appreciate all the conversations we’ve had in public and in private about this particular issue.

I’ve heard both the comments in favor and against it, and I’m planning on voting “yes” on this with some reservations, and these reservations are twofold.

I’m a little concerned about how overly broad it is and the enforcement mechanism, and we need to see how this actually plays out in real life on our campuses.

And the second one, of course, is about our communication. Historically the university has not been the best about communicating. It will be very important to our faculty, to our staff and to our students, that we understand that this is not a speech ban, this is not a speech restriction. It’s a time, place and manner restriction. And getting that communication out there will be very important to the success of our institutional neutrality policy.

Regent Denise Ilitch

I, too, would like to thank everyone for all their hard work regarding the institutional neutrality bylaw. I’d also like to thank our community who was very involved in giving feedback that we’ve received, and it was very, very helpful during this process.

I’ve been on campus for the past several days and I’ve heard from many of you in our community. So, moving forward, I am asking the university leaders to create a website and a communication portal to share FAQ’s and provide a forum so that our community can be best informed and have a place where questions can be answered as we go through this new bylaw.

I am asking the president and the administration as well to report back on the bylaw in six months and then in one year to understand how it is working, what community feedback we are receiving and if additional clarifications or changes should be needed.

Regent Mark Bernstein

I’d like to say that I fully support the adoption of institutional neutrality policy at the University of Michigan. It’s my view that this institution should start discussions about consequential issues of our time, not stop them.

With regard to process, it’s important to note this policy is a result of a long, deliberative process that started with three committees with 36 distinguished faculty, librarians, several staff and two student representatives, covering all three of our campuses — UM-Ann Arbor, Flint and Dearborn — and our Michigan Medicine community.

During its work over six months, the committee received over 4,000 thoughtful comments, a town hall was convened by SACUA that was well-attended where diversity of thought on this issue was voiced, and we’ve received roughly 50 more comments over the last several weeks on this matter.

The university should be the home and sponsor of critics — we heard this earlier today from some of our distinguished faculty — not the critic. We must open the way for our individual faculty’s expertise, intelligence, scholarship and wisdom to inform our state and society in their own voice, free from institutional interference.

This neutrality policy elevates individual faculty voices in honoring our indispensable mission. Institutional neutrality also eliminates the suppression of ideas in departments or other units where faculty who seek promotion or retention, including lecturers, feel compelled to fall in line with an expressed institutional orthodoxy embraced by their superiors.

Finally, I want to make a point about the institutional context here. Two years ago, I had historians and librarians at the Bentley look at institutional statements made by this board going back as far as they could go back in time. It was really interesting and telling, that during the Civil War there was no statement, after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln there was no statement, during World War I there was no statement, during World War II there were no statements, after the JFK assassination there were no statements.  So institutional statements are a modern phenomenon and a misguided venture that betrays our public mission.

As an institution, therefore, we should put questions before answers, and this policy, in my view, does just that.

Regent Sarah Hubbard

Last month, the report of the Advisory Committee on the University of Michigan Principles on Diversity of Thought and Freedom of Expression was presented at our Board of Regents meeting. That report called for adoption of a new Regents Bylaw that would require institutional neutrality.

At that meeting, I asked Vice President and General Counsel Tim Lynch to draft a proposed bylaw amendment for consideration by our community and this board. Since then, the proposal was published for public comment in The University Record and considered by SACUA at a special forum. I reviewed the feedback and watched the SACUA forum held yesterday, which included thoughtful comments from a few of our faculty members. I’ve spoken directly to numerous members of our university community about this effort.

Some, as Regent Bernstein just mentioned, have raised various concerns or have indicated that we should be taking more time to debate this topic. However, I would note, the Kalven Report, upon which this bylaw was modeled, was published Nov. 1, 1967 — almost 57 years ago. In that light, others have indicated that this effort is long overdue. We received thousands of comments regarding the committee’s report and the proposed bylaw, and I thank our community for their robust engagement.

As the advisory committee noted, institutional statements disserve the university’s mission. They undermine our commitment to open inquiry by suggesting that those who disagree are unwelcome. They cause would-be dissenters to worry that voicing disagreement may jeopardize admission, grades or advancement.

The risk is especially acute for statements issued by or on behalf of departments or other units that make up the university because of the closer connections among the individuals within those units.

I am supporting this amendment because I believe in diversity of thought and freedom of expression. I hope this is just the first step in a long process to update bylaws and procedures that will make our campus a place that is welcoming to all voices.

And I can assure you, this will not limit the individual voices of regents and other individuals to speak their minds regarding issues both on and off campus, but we will not be speaking on behalf of the institution regarding social or political issues that are not related to our internal governance.

Institutional neutrality is the position that is the most supportive of faculty. It says the experts and scholars should be the ones engaged in public debate and discourse. They should move knowledge and fields forward. It’s not up to chairs, deans or administrators to make those arguments on behalf of the university. It’s up to individuals to engage in robust debate regarding issues of today and in our future.

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