Martin and Diermeier’s hubris becomes even clearer when applied to other university departments. Is the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies department expected to be neutral on the topic of feminism? The Latin American Studies department on human rights abuses by the U.S. government? WashU’s own WashU & Slavery Project is certainly not neutral on its subject matter, nor should it be! Academic work is often quite political, and that’s OK. 

If we keep spreading the narrative that WashU is a place of suppression of expression, then yes, it will be a space of uncomfortable silence. We, the student body, have both passively and actively created that perceived reality for ourselves.

I deeply value the intellectual community I have found at WashU, and am regularly struck with admiration for the students, faculty, and staff who constitute it. That is why it pains me to see our community represented in a national news outlet by such a morally unserious statement. WashU deserves better.

In a joint session on Tuesday, Sept. 10, Chancellor Andrew Martin addressed Student Union Senate and Treasury in a rare Q&A, expressing gratitude to the student leaders and fielding questions regarding campus protests, encampments, and concerns with Title IX policies from various Senators. 

If administrators only answer certain criticisms, are students really being listened to?

Chancellor Andrew Martin met with Valerie Jarrett, CEO of the Obama Foundation, and Washington Post reporter Michael Isikoff to discuss free speech and democracy on college campuses on Sept. 9. 

Chancellor Andrew Martin moderated a conversation on freedom of speech between Hebrew University in Jerusalem professor Barak Medina and Washington University professor Lee Epstein in Umrath Lounge, Sept. 3. Attendees filled the 130 seats, with roughly another 60 standing in order to watch. 

I am deeply in support of the expansion of university resources and the long-term sustainability of higher education. I am not convinced, however, that tying up billions of dollars in private capital is the best way to fulfill WashU’s obligations as an educational institution.

About 25 pro-Palestine protesters gathered outside Washington University Chancellor Andrew Martin’s house on Forsyth Boulevard waving flags and chanting, May 2nd.

“The WUIMC has a fiduciary responsibility to make decisions that are financially, ethically, and legally dubious (to put it nicely). The WUIMC will only seek to profit from the violation of basic human rights and dignity when the Chancellor deems it ‘socially responsible’ to do so.”