让教职员工闭嘴：哈佛大学院长提出了一个解决方案

【中美创新时报2024 年 6 月 19 日编译讯】（记者温友平编译）哈佛大学社会科学院院长劳伦斯·博博（Lawrence Bobo ）在上周的学生报纸上发表的一篇专栏文章中表示，过度批评大学的教职员工应该受到纪律处分。在博博的批评者看来，这一立场似乎是对大学教师应该自由表达意见这一基本学术原则的直接攻击。对此，《波士顿环球报》记者麦克·达米亚诺（Mike Damiano）作了下述详细报道。

本周，哈佛大学院长完成了看似不可能的事情：团结哈佛校园里的对立派系。

他的方法是什么？他提出了一个让哈佛教授非常反感的论点，以至于支持巴勒斯坦和支持以色列的教职员工联合起来谴责他。

哈佛大学社会科学院院长劳伦斯·博博在上周的学生报纸上发表的一篇专栏文章中表示，过度批评大学的教职员工应该受到纪律处分。在博博的批评者看来，这一立场似乎是对大学教师应该自由表达意见这一基本学术原则的直接攻击。

但博博在题为“教师言论必须有限制”的文章中却认为并非如此。

“教师的言论自由权并不等同于一张空白支票，允许他们公然煽动外部行为者（无论是媒体、校友、捐赠者、联邦机构还是政府）干预哈佛事务，”博博在《哈佛深红报》上写道。

他的文章发表于哈佛近年来最动荡的一年即将结束之际。由于以色列-哈马斯战争引发的抗议、反犹太主义和仇视伊斯兰教的指控以及导致校长下台的抄袭丑闻，哈佛大学陷入了媒体风暴的中心，成为多项联邦调查的对象，并成为谴责多样性、公平性和包容性的保守派活动人士的攻击目标。

博博认为，直言不讳的教师应该为这场骚乱承担大部分责任——并应受到制裁。

“如果一名教职员工严厉批评大学领导、教职员工或学生，意图激起外界对大学事务的干预，这是否超出了可接受的职业行为范围？广泛发表此类观点是否越界，成为可处罚的违反职业行为的行为？”他写道。

“是的，确实如此。”

反对声音迅速出现，至少目前，亲以色列和亲巴勒斯坦的教职员工团结起来。

“我很震惊，哈佛的院长竟然要求审查任何教职员工对大学事务的评论。这显然是对学术自由的侵犯，”前哈佛校长劳伦斯·萨默斯 (Lawrence Summers) 表示，他最近几个月一直对一些亲巴勒斯坦活动分子提出严厉批评。

“[Bobo 的] 文章与大学最近的许多行动相似，在教师表达和治理问题上采取了看似专横的态度，”历史学教授沃尔特·约翰逊 (Walter Johnson) 表示，他曾在秋季学期担任哈佛大学领先的亲巴勒斯坦团体的教师顾问。

随着本周对这篇文章的批评越来越多，该大学与博博的论点划清了界限。

在哈佛大学发言人发表的一份声明中，同时担任社会学教授的博博表示：“《深红》专栏文章表达了我作为一名教师的个人观点，试图向更广泛的哈佛社区提出重要问题。”

另一位哈佛大学发言人乔纳森·斯温 (Jonathan Swain) 表示：“专栏文章中表达的观点……是 [Bobo] 自己的观点，并不代表哈佛大学的立场。”

Bobo 发表这篇文章时，校园里正就言论自由和学术自由展开激烈辩论——他们认为大学应该营造一种促进开放探究的环境，而不会受到报复威胁。此事发生之时，正值哈佛大学管理层与教职员工之间的紧张关系不断加剧，后者对哈佛大学上一学年争议事件的混乱回应提出了广泛批评。

博博特别将责任归咎于前校长萨默斯（Summers），他批评哈佛大学对以色列-哈马斯战争的回应。博博写道：“包括一位前校长在内的知名校友以极其粗暴的方式公开谴责哈佛大学的学生和现任领导层。”

去年，萨默斯批评大学领导未能立即与学生团体发表的一份有争议的声明划清界限，该声明认为以色列对 10 月 7 日哈马斯领导的对以色列的袭击以及随后的加沙地带战争负有全部责任。后来，他批评大学对校园反犹主义的回应不够充分，美国国会目前正在调查此事。（12 月，萨默斯与当时的哈佛大学校长克劳丁·盖伊联名签署了一封支持信，此前她在国会听证会上就校园反犹主义作证时遭到强烈反对。）

博博还批评了支持亲巴勒斯坦学生活动人士的教授，包括 4 月份在哈佛园建立未经授权营地的教授。一些哈佛教职员工参加了营地活动。一些教授还担任因在营地中扮演的角色而受到纪律处分的学生的顾问（受到纪律处分的学生通常有权获得教职顾问）。

博博说，某些类型的教职员工对抗议者的支持也应受到纪律处分。

“如果教职员工鼓励学生进行违反大学政策的民事抗命，这是可以接受的职业行为吗？教职员工为明显违反学生行为准则的行为辩护是非常有问题的。在学生收到可能严重违规的官方通知后这样做是不可接受的。这种行为也应该有可处罚的限制，”他写道。

一些教授对管理人员呼吁惩罚教职员工的言论表示震惊。

一位从事社会科学工作的哈佛教授说：“认为机构成员应该因批评该机构而受到惩罚，这种说法代表了一种专制心态，在大学里是没有立足之地的。”这位教授要求匿名批评“决定 [我] 薪水的院长，特别是当院长说院长有权惩罚批评院长的教职员工时。”

一个有影响力的哈佛教职员工团体学术自由委员会正在撰写一篇反驳博博专栏文章的文章。一些教授最近几天联系了哈佛管理人员，询问博博的文章是否代表了大学政策的转变。

在博博于周二表示该评论文章仅代表其个人观点后，萨默斯表示：“博博教授的这一举动很不错，但他有权决定薪资、晋升和资源分配，除非他的上级强烈明确地驳斥他的观点，否则哈佛的学术自由将受到威胁。”

12 月，博博与数百名其他教职员工签署了一封公开信，敦促哈佛领导层“捍卫大学的独立性，抵制与哈佛对学术自由的承诺相悖的政治压力。”

当时，时任校长盖伊因在共和党领导的国会听证会上就校园反犹太主义问题作证而面临严厉批评，并被要求辞职。随后，她面临一系列抄袭指控，这些指控首先由保守派活动家和保守派新闻媒体公开，然后被主流媒体报道。今年 1 月，她辞职了。

许多教职员工对外界对哈佛事务的影响感到不满。

历史学教授、前巴勒斯坦团结委员会顾问约翰逊就是其中之一。他称博博的文章“可能出于好意”，但最终却被误导了。

“听着，我也希望我能拒绝一些同事，”他说。“我肯定他们中的一些人也希望他们能拒绝我。但扩大大学已经滥用的纪律机构来惩罚那些谈论这些问题的教师，即使以某个群体可能认为适得其反的方式，至少也似乎适得其反。”

这篇专栏文章至少包含了一种哈佛大学许多人都同意的观点。

“在这充满无休止争议的历史性一年之后，”博博写道，“我——和许多教职员工一样——期待校园里能有更平静的时光。”

题图：本周，一位院长的专栏文章提议对某些类型的教职员工言论进行纪律处分，这在哈佛大学引起了强烈反对。JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF

附原英文报道：

After year of turmoil, a Harvard dean proposes a solution: muzzle the faculty

By Mike Damiano Globe Staff,Updated June 18, 2024

A Harvard dean pulled off the seemingly impossible this week: uniting the opposing factions on Harvard’s campus.

His method? He put forward an argument so offensive to Harvard professors that pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel faculty members joined together to denounce him.

In an op-ed in the student newspaper last week, Dean of Social Science Lawrence Bobo said that faculty members who excessively criticize the university should be subject to discipline. It was a stance that seemed, to Bobo’s critics, like a direct attack on the bedrock academic principle that university faculty should be free to express their opinions.

Not so, Bobo argued, in the essay titled “Faculty Speech Must Have Limits.”

“A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs,” Bobo wrote in the Harvard Crimson.

His essay came at the end of the most tumultuous year at Harvard in recent memory. Roiled by protest over the Israel-Hamas war, allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia, and a plagiarism scandal that took down its president, the school found itself at the center of a media storm, the subject of multiple federal investigations, and a target of conservative activists decrying diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Outspoken faculty members, Bobo argued, deserve much of the blame for the tumult — and should be sanctioned.

“Is it outside the bounds of acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to excoriate University leadership, faculty, staff, or students with the intent to arouse external intervention into University business? And does the broad publication of such views cross a line into sanctionable violations of professional conduct?” he wrote.

“Yes it is and yes it does.”

The backlash has been swift, and it has united, at least for the moment, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian faculty members.

“I am stunned that a Harvard dean would call for censuring any faculty members’ comments on university affairs. This would be an obvious intrusion on academic freedom,” said former Harvard president Lawrence Summers, who has been sharply critical of some elements of pro-Palestinian activism in recent months.

“[Bobo’s] piece resembles many of the recent actions of the university in its seemingly high-handed approach toward the question of faculty expression and governance,” said Walter Johnson, a history professor who was a faculty adviser for Harvard’s leading pro-Palestinian group during the fall semester.

As criticism of the essay mounted this week, the university distanced itself from Bobo’s argument.

In a statement sent by a Harvard spokesperson, Bobo, who is also a sociology professor, said, “The Crimson Op-ed expresses my personal views as a member of the faculty, seeking to put important questions before the wider Harvard community.”

Another Harvard spokesperson, Jonathan Swain, said, “[T]he views expressed in the op-ed … are [Bobo’s] own and do not represent a position of Harvard University.”

Bobo published the essay at a time of intense debates on campus about free speech and academic freedom — the idea that universities should cultivate an environment that fosters open inquiry without threat of reprisal. It also came at a time of mounting tensions between university administrators and faculty members, who have leveled wide-ranging critiques over what some view as Harvard’s shambolic response to the controversies of the past academic year.

Bobo cast blame specifically on Summers, the former president, who criticized Harvard’s response to the Israel-Hamas war. Bobo wrote of “the appallingly rough manner in which prominent affiliates, including one former University president, publicly denounced Harvard’s students and present leadership.”

Last year, Summers criticized university leaders for failing to immediately distance the school from a controversial statement issued by student groups that held Israel entirely responsible for the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip. Later he criticized what he viewed as the university’s inadequate response to campus antisemitism, a matter that the US Congress is now investigating. (In December, Summers co-signed a letter of support for then-Harvard president Claudine Gay after she faced intense blowback over her testimony at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism.)

Bobo also criticized professors who supported pro-Palestinian student activists, including those who set up an unauthorized encampment on Harvard Yard in April. Some Harvard faculty members attended the encampment. Some professors also served as advisers to students facing discipline for their roles in the encampment (students in disciplinary proceedings are generally entitled to a faculty adviser).

Bobo said some types of faculty support for protesters should be subject to discipline, as well.

“Is it acceptable professional conduct for a faculty member to encourage civil disobedience on the part of students that violates University policies? Faculty advocacy for actions clearly identified as in violation of student conduct rules is extremely problematic. Doing so after students have received official notification of a potential serious infraction is not acceptable. Such behavior should have sanctionable limits as well,” he wrote.

Some professors expressed alarm that an administrator would call for punishing faculty members for their speech.

One Harvard professor, who works in the social sciences, said, “The suggestion that members of an institution should be punished for criticizing that institution represents an authoritarian mindset, with no place in a university.” The professor requested anonymity to criticize “the dean who determines [my] salary, particularly when the dean is saying that deans have the right to punish faculty who criticize deans.”

An influential Harvard faculty group, the Council on Academic Freedom, is writing a rebuttal to Bobo’s op-ed. Some professors contacted Harvard administrators in recent days asking if Bobo’s essay represented a shift in university policy.

After Bobo said on Tuesday that the op-ed represented only his personal views, Summers said: “It is a nice step by Professor Bobo, but he has authority over salaries, setting promotions, and resource allocations and until there is a strong and clear repudiation of his views by those to whom he reports, academic freedom at Harvard will be in jeopardy.”

In December, Bobo, along with hundreds of other faculty members, signed an open letter urging Harvard leaders “to defend the independence of the university and to resist political pressures that are at odds with Harvard’s commitment to academic freedom.”

At the time, then-president Gay was facing scathing criticism, and calls for her resignation, over her testimony at a Republican-led congressional hearing on campus antisemitism. She then faced a series of plagiarism allegations that were first publicized by conservative activists and a conservative news outlet, and then picked up by the mainstream press. In January, she resigned.

Many faculty members resented the outside influence on Harvard’s affairs.

Johnson, the history professor and former adviser to the Palestine Solidarity Committee, is among them. He called Bobo’s essay “presumably well-intentioned,” but ultimately misguided.

“Look, I also wish I could turn down some of my colleagues,” he said. “I’m sure some of them wish they could turn me down. But expanding the already abused disciplinary apparatus of the university to punish faculty for speaking out about the issues, even if in ways that one group or another might view as counterproductive, seems, at the very least, counterproductive.”

The op-ed contained at least one sentiment that many at Harvard agree with.

“After this historic year of endless controversy,” Bobo wrote, “I — like many faculty members — look forward to calmer times on campus.”