CHICAGO — Northwestern University’s provost, Dr. Jonathan Holloway, knows first-hand how difficult it can be to navigate free speech issues on campus.
A prominent historian and the first Black dean of Yale College recalled how in 2015, the Ivy League school became a “nerve center” and captured national headlines when racial protests erupted on campus and he was criticized by Black students for taking too long to respond.
Angry students surrounded him on campus one November day and buttonholed him on what he was going to do to change the climate on campus.
Ironically, during that very same semester, Holloway was teaching a post-Emancipation course and that very week was lecturing to students about Black student radicalism in the 1960s.
“So, Professor Holloway being surrounded by 250 students is thinking, ‘Wow, this is pretty cool,’” Holloway told a group of graduate school deans who traveled to Chicago for the Council of Graduate Schools Summer Workshop and New Deans Institute. “Dean Holloway wanted it to stop very quickly.”
In the opening plenary titled, “Whose Speech is Free? Diversity, Inclusion and the Politics of Expediency,” Holloway shared his experience and warned administrators not to shy away from discussing free speech issues on campus.
“We need to be unafraid to talk and listen and have really difficult conversations,” he said, adding that the purpose of the university is to debate ideas — even ideas that one disagrees with.
