Institutional Neutrality Is Sweeping Across American Higher Ed

Real-time data on this wave of change.

The world of higher education appears to be in constant flux, with a series of major changes —some good, some not so good—reverberating through universities across the country. Amidst the chaos, one positive development has materialized: the growth of institutional neutrality.

Covered in today’s New York Times, Heterodox Academy’s (HxA’) just-out latest report, The Rising Tide of Statement Neutrality in Higher Education: How Universities Are Rethinking Institutional Speech, explores the trends in the recent wave of institutional statement neutrality adoptions at universities in North America.

While the HxA policy team continues to develop thoughtful and principled analyses of ongoing issues, advocating for institutional neutrality—the commitment of universities and their leaders to not weigh in on issues that do not directly affect their missions—remains a top priority.

Institutional neutrality, also often referred to as “institutional statement neutrality” or simply “statement neutrality,” ensures that a university remains the “home and sponsor of critics” but that “it is not itself the critic.” It allows for institutional leadership to reflect carefully on what issues have immediate and material consequences for their campuses and refrain from weighing in on issues that are largely orthogonal to the mission of their institutions.

What does our new report find? In short: Adoptions of institutional statement neutrality policies have soared over the past year. As of the end of 2024, 148 universities had such policies or commitments in place—a welcome increase from the 18 known adoptions prior to 2024.

This has been a long time coming. Though the seminal Kalven Report was published in 1967, official commitments to institutional statement neutrality were few and far between for the half-century afterward.

It appears that the intense escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2023 put universities and their leaders under pressure to weigh in on a complex issue that did not break neatly across ideological divides and, in fact, seemed to reveal a cleavage in the left-of-center constituency that largely comprises higher education.

Instead of wading into a hotly contested controversy and risk alienating members of their communities, many university leaders and decision-making bodies instead championed values of community and inclusion, free speech and academic freedom, public trust, and the necessity of balancing rights and responsibilities, all of which we found to be recurring themes in their official announcements of neutrality.

Public universities as well as research-heavy institutions are leading the pack of institutional neutrality adoptions. Our analysis shows that 115 of the known neutrality adoptions have occurred within public institutions.

Adoptions within public institutions are often driven by governing boards or in some cases state legislatures that have legally mandated wholesale adoption of neutrality across all public institutions of higher education in their states.

We also found that university presidents were more likely to be the drivers of neutrality adoptions at the 33 private institutions with known neutrality policies.

Institutions classified as R1s—meaning that they have a very high degree of research activity, according to the Carnegie Classification system—account for a sizable share of neutrality adoptions, though they represent a small share of the thousands of colleges across the U.S. At least 52 R1 universities had official policies in place as of the end of 2024.

Institutional statement neutrality is being embraced on college campuses across North America. The timing is fortuitous. Given the current climate, the demands on institutional leadership can be head-spinning. Institutional neutrality encourages institutions and their leaders to remain focused on fighting battles that keep their campuses centers of spirited inquiry and open debate.

Does your institution have a statement neutrality policy? Are they missing from our list? Let us know!

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Dive into the report with a live webinar discussion Wednesday, March 12 at 12:00-1:00 pm ET with panelists Robert Post of Yale Law School, Victor DiRita of Michigan State University, and Erin Shaw of HxA, discussing the rapid growth of institutional neutrality, the factors driving its adoption, and the broader implications for academic leadership and campus culture. The conversation, moderated by Alex Arnold, HxA’s Director of Research, will also share the latest analysis from team HxA on the 2024 wave of institutional neutrality .