On Thursday evening 10/15, the WashU Civil Society Initiative hosted a panel discussion examining whether academic freedom protects racist or sexist research, and how universities should respond when faculty-produced research conflicts with institutional values. Approximately forty people attended, including other professors, students, and members of the general public.

The Civil Society Initiative featured philosophy professors Daniel Layman and Lesley Walker as the two panelists, as well as opening remarks from Director of Graduate Studies in Philosophy Allan Hazlett.

The event was part of the Initiative’s Dinner & Dialogue series, which regularly holds debates between WashU and non-WashU faculty on timely ethical and political questions. In his opening remarks Hazlett shared the importance of Dinner & Dialogue.

“I was chatting with someone recently and she was telling me, ‘When I meet someone at the gym, or maybe a new coworker, I make a point [that] I don’t talk politics with them,’” Hazlett said. “I worry that this ‘don’t talk about politics’ policy is not a long-term solution to the problem of political disagreement … You [have] got to get rid of this animosity to find out what someone’s politics are.”

In her opening argument Walker asserted that when an institution hires a professor, that act is a passive endorsement of the professor’s ideas, values, and status as a valued member of the academic community. Therefore, a university cannot platform racist or sexist research while simultaneously affirming commonly held institutional values of inclusivity, belonging, and academic integrity.

“If there is a researcher that is at the university who then pursues research that does not, in fact, align with institutional values of which the university has stated they are dedicated to, then they have an obligation to remain coherent in their mission statement, in their mission values, and respond accordingly,” Walker said.

In contrast, Layman argued that universities exist primarily to facilitate the exchange of reasons and regard.

“It’s a space in which anything may, in principle, be defended with reasons, but in which nothing is exempt from having to defend itself: everything permitted, nothing safe,” Layman said. 

Layman carefully distinguished university sanctions from other forms of academic accountability. He emphasized that shielding faculty from administrative punishment does not protect them from public criticism or rejection.

“[I]f a faculty member is racist, and a lot of journals and book publishers find this as grounds to think their research is bad and do not want to publish their papers or books, I don’t think that constitutes punishment from the university,” Layman said. “Frankly, that’s their problem, right? Getting published is one’s own problem, not that of the university.”

Walker pushed back on his position, arguing that while Layman’s model might work for an institution that only claims to be a free market of ideas, most real-world universities explicitly commit to additional values such as inclusivity, diversity of knowledge, belonging, and student safety.

“When we educate someone, we partially instill certain values in them over others,” Walker said. “Given that that’s unavoidable, and we can’t remove that, I think we then have an obligation to, as best as we can, be transparent about what values we may be indoctrinating you into or instilling in you.”

Despite their opposing views, both panelists agreed that members of academic communities should not become complacent when they encounter racist or sexist publishing in their fields. They encouraged students to challenge professors’ and researchers’ points of view, whether that be through protests or other means.

“Rather than relying on any kind of bureaucratic aims or procedures, [students] have to assess what our faculty colleagues or teachers say, right, publicly in the open, and take responsibility for what we say about them, and hold them responsible for what they say to us,” Layman said.

Walker also added how the institution can be more responsive to the views and opinions of its students and faculty.

“Say that we have a [professor] and they’re pursuing some line of research … and a variety of students, colleagues, or somebody in the public says, ‘Hey, this research doesn’t really seem to really do what you say that you’re doing as an institution. I don’t like that. I’m concerned about this.’ I think the institution should look into that and should take into account community members’ thoughts, and opinions,” Walker said.