While teaching my summer course on negotiations, two particular comments stood out in the course evaluations. First, there was some good advice on dog training, and thank you to the student who wrote that. (I promise you, this topic came up during a break.) Second, another student wrote, “Loved that you didn’t talk politics. I agree it’s not something necessary for the classroom. I really respect your decision!” Thanks to them as well. Given that the negotiations course includes topics such as power dynamics, compromise, and managing conflict, students often ask about my views on political negotiations.

When this happens — as it has dozens of times during my 22 years teaching at WashU and University of California, Berkeley — I always do a time-out. I tell students it isn’t appropriate for me to discuss my own political beliefs in class and that having a Ph.D. from a psychology department does not put my political opinions above theirs. Faculty members’ academic credentials don’t make us experts on everything. Academic freedom for faculty is for us to speak freely from our professional expertise, not to instruct students about anything that crosses our minds. That part is our freedom of speech outside of work. Further, my goal is to teach students how to think, not what to think: to share facts and frameworks for analyzing these facts. I do not share my own opinion about what side students should take in their personal politics because that is not my place. 

This view was shaped by policy at UC Berkeley, where I began my career: “The unequal institutional power inherent in [the faculty-student] relationship heightens the vulnerability of the student and the potential for coercion.” Only in a relationship of equals is there the possibility of a true exchange about personal politics without pressure or negative consequences. (Berkeley connected this policy to why faculty-student romantic relationships are banned, to ensure free consent among equals.) I regret that many of my colleagues do not follow this approach — if professors need to spoon-feed you values or validate your convictions, then as a university we are doing something wrong. 

Faculty members are always on the job when interacting with you, which raises the issue of free consent among equals. It concerns me when colleagues discuss personal politics with you as students in any forum, whether private conversations, class discussions, public signed statements with their university affiliation, or in-person events. When faculty were arrested during the campus protest in April (regardless of whether they were treated fairly afterwards), I wondered why they were there to begin with, crashing a student event. Some might argue that campus protests are open to the public and that faculty are free to attend them. However, I believe this perspective overlooks the power differential noted by UC Berkeley, which states that students are vulnerable to coercion. When faculty are engaging in political activity with you, they can be constraining your freedom of speech. You need us for many things, but something you don’t need us for is holding a protest.

As GenXers, my classmates and I marched against South African Apartheid and the Gulf War without faculty members there. They did their own thing and left us to do ours. There can be good intentions for faculty to attend student events, perhaps the belief they are to support and protect you so that you don’t have to be courageous alone. However, the fact is that you aren’t alone: you are adults who have each other. 

I believe that faculty attendance at student protests is an extension of my generation’s attitude toward young adults more generally, which is to emphasize the ‘young’ part rather than the ‘adult.’ Many of you came of age being tracked with your phones while your parents managed your social life. Even today, many of your parents contact the University tirelessly, trying to solve your problems. Although it is well-meaning, at some point help is not helpful. Instead, we need to trust and respect you enough to let you lead. Just as your parents need to let go, we faculty likewise need to leave you to your own political activism. You deserve better than us reliving the glory of our college days and feeling validated through you, this time getting to be authority figures. 

There are concepts in psychology called “halo” and “pitchfork” effects that illustrate why it can be problematic for faculty to discuss their personal politics with students. That is, when you like or dislike one thing about a person it tends to spill over into liking or disliking other things about them too. Biases like this are so strong that experimental instructions to de-bias often bounce back and make it worse. Faculty fall prey to halo and pitchfork biases just like anyone else. Although they do not deliberately engage students on political topics to surveil you and tally who agrees or disagrees, as humans we cannot control thinking more highly of those who agree with our views, whether political or not. Even if faculty attend protests to support you, they also notice who is there. This favors some students and disfavors others. 

You may not mind faculty speaking with you about politics if you agree with them. However, in the long run you could find yourself on either side of this equation. Perhaps you agree with their views on one topic but not another, or you disagree with a different professor. At an extreme, you would have to keep a roster of professors’ personal views on a range of political issues to select courses. You are adults who can think for yourselves, but you still need tangible things from us like grades, internships, and recommendation letters. These should not be put at risk from unintentional bias if you disagree with professors’ personal views. 

Sadly, a second problem when faculty discuss politics with students relates to the culture wars that have put higher education under attack. When professors offer their political opinions in class, this offers talking points on a silver platter to politicians like J. D. Vance who call universities centers of indoctrination and advocates to defund us. I do not believe that describes universities accurately, and we need to be consistent in making clear it does not. 

Where this leaves you, ideally, is as young adults who set boundaries with older adults. I urge you to push back when faculty members engage you in their personal politics in any format, event, or type of discussion. You can thank them for supporting you but say that you’ve got this. You can tell them that displaying their political views might make other students uncomfortable. You can tell them that you look forward to having conversations about politics after you graduate. You can say that, whether or not you agree with their politics, you would rather focus time with them on architecture, English, sociology, or biochemistry. I urge you to push back especially as an ally when you agree with the professor. With all due respect to my colleagues, halos and pitchforks can make it risky to speak up when political views diverge from those of faculty. Pushing back when you agree is not only allyship but enlightened self-interest for the long run. Unfortunately, if faculty don’t hold back as you develop and act on your own political convictions, then part of leading for your generation will require you to shrug off interference from us.