Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology College Senate Aspirational Statement on Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom
Founding Father, Benjamin Franklin founded this college. Fortunately, we are continuing the most important part of his legacy: the commitment to open inquiry.
Greetings readers.
Happy New Year!
In the spirit of renewal and forward-looking visioning, I’d like to share a link to a document that I authored with the participation of a good number of people over a three-year period, including attorneys, colleagues, staff members, and the president of the college I teach at.
The link to the document —the Benjamin Franklin Cummings Institute of Technology College Senate Charter and Bylaws—can be found here. For a more comprehensive look into the college’s legacy and the work we’ve all put into building strength into this institution, please read the piece below that I published on February 28, 2023.
The three sections of the newly ratified 2023 charter and bylaws of the Franklin Cummings Tech College Senate I am most happy about are the sections on the raising of awareness around the problem of academic bullying, the need for thoughtful mediation processes among staff and faculty, and the section I am pasting below on Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom. During the public comment period, these three sections, which I authored with feedback from colleagues both within and outside the college, are the only ones that did not undergo revision. The main reason for this is that I was mindful to be inclusive during the writing process.
As the old saying goes, you don’t have to win buy-in when you’ve gathered people’s input. A collective “we” authored this document, and that is a fact.
I’ll have more to say in a later post about the process of founding the college senate and the recent process of revising the bylaws to reflect today’s current social, political, and economic reality, the contributions of others, and how our college senate and its written constitution relates to the recent public letter I signed today called A Vision for a New Future of the University of Pennsylvania.
For now, I want to share the officially ratified public-facing document representing our institution that was founded by Benjamin Franklin (who also founded the University of Pennsylvania). To my knowledge this is the only college senate in the United States that directly refers to academic bullying and which includes an aspirational statement related to freedom of speech. It may also be the first college senate charter to directly make reference to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (F.I.R.E.) the premier organization in the western hemisphere dedicated to freedom of speech, conscience, and expression.
Over the next several weeks, I will be returning to the larger writing project, I’ve been calling the “All We Are” series. Though I don’t post frequently, I appreciate very much the support of readers, including those who are free subscribers. I tend to post longer pieces over longer stretches of time, which means that I am not posting the quantity of writings that subscribers might be used to from other writers. But, please know that I am working in real time on matters that I have written extensively about.
It helps to know that people are interested in the actual work itself and not just the ideas. Without the practical application of ideas, we are lost.
Thank you very much for your support, and all the best to you.
Steven James Lawrence
EXCERPT
IV. Franklin Cummings Tech College Senate
Aspirational Statement on Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom
A. Aspirational Statement on Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom Vs. Affirmation or Official Endorsement
The Charter and Bylaws of the Franklin Cummings Tech College Senate reflect the highest aspirations of community, workplace, educational, and organizational norm and values, including the Institutional Values laid out on the official website of Franklin Cummings Tech. To that end, the Charter and Bylaws have aimed throughout to emphasize the most positive, fair, productive, and informed ways to relate to all other individuals and stakeholder groups in the college community in both written and verbal forms.
The aspiration to communicate from the highest levels of knowledge, humanity, and fairness reflects the Franklin Cummings Tech College Senate’s desire to authentically honor the Senate’s charter to serve the mission of the college by honoring the intrinsic dignity and rights of all individual members and stakeholder groups of the college community.
One of the ways to most authentically honor the Senate charter and, by extension, the mission of Franklin Cummings Tech is to affirm and uphold the principles of Freedom of Speech and Expression and the principles of Academic Freedom that the college has already affirmed in the Employee Handbook and Student Handbook.
Given the current debate in American society around the question of what constitutes Freedom of Speech and Expression and Academic Freedom and what constitutes the most effective atmosphere for the pursuit of knowledge, civilizational advancement, and the greater good, including what some call social justice or human rights, many colleges and universities and individual departments and committees within institutions of higher education across the United States have either officially adopted or affirmed both Freedom of Speech and Expression and Academic Freedom in the form of a public statement or resolution.
Due to the need for such an important topic to be robustly debated and thoroughly processed throughout the college community and the impending deadline for formal ratification of the revised Franklin Cummings Tech College Senate By-laws, this section on the principles of Freedom of Speech and Expression and Academic Freedom must remain aspirational. That is, the work of the Senate aspires to honor these principles in the work carried out under the official charter in the current absence of a formal resolution that formally affirms or officially adopts these principles..
In the future—potentially during the three-year term of the elected Officers of the Franklin Cummings College Senate under the newly ratified By-laws —there may be a public declaration of commitment to these principles by the college, the Senate, or other stakeholder groups in the form of an affirmation or formal adoption. For now, until such time that an official affirmation or adoption of these principles is publicly articulated, the Senate will continue to honor these principles from an aspirational stance as it conducts its work.
B. Further Considerations and Context for the Senate’s Aspirational Statement on Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom
Throughout the United States, there is a growing movement towards the affirmation or the official adoption of the principles of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom by various governing bodies of institutions of higher education. Many of these institutions have been directly influenced by the University of Chicago in their adoption of these principles.
In 2015, the University of Chicago released an official statement of commitment to the principles of Freedom of Speech and Expression and Academic Freedom. The ideas outlined in this statement became known as the Chicago Principles. To date, 82 colleges and universities in the United States have officially adopted the Chicago Principles while many other colleges and universities have publicly declared their own versions of the Chicago Principles, which has been well-documented by many free speech advocacy groups, including the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (F.I.R.E.).
Since the late 2010’s, F.I.R.E. has compiled a list of colleges and universities that have either affirmed or officially adopted a version of the Chicago Principles. These statements have been either affirmed or officially adopted by one of the following governing bodies of each college or university:
● The College
● The University
● The Board of Trustees
● The Faculty Senate
● The Board of Regents
● The Board of Governors
● Faculty Governance,
● Board of Visitors
● Individual departments and/or colleges
The list below is excerpted from a larger list compiled by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (F.I.R.E.) and comprises colleges and universities in the Greater Boston region and New England that have either affirmed or officially adopted a statement of commitment to the principles of freedom of speech and expression and academic freedom— including the statement of affirmation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which was affirmed by Faculty Governance in December of 2022.
Princeton University: Officially Adopted in April 2015*
University of Maine System: Affirmed by Board of Trustees in March 2017.
Smith College: Affirmed by Board of Trustees in February 2018.
Suffolk University: Officially Adopted in July 2018.
Brandeis University: Officially Adopted in October 2018.*
Boston University: Affirmed by Board of Trustees in October 2020.*
University of Massachusetts Boston: Affirmed by the College of Science and Mathematics Faculty Senate in April 2022.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Affirmed by Faculty Governance in December 2022.*
**Please note that according to F.I.R.E,, the asterisk indicates that multiple campus stakeholders approved the statements.
C. Franklin Cummings Tech’s Stated Commitment to Freedom of Speech, the 1st Amendment, and Academic Freedom
The following information had been extracted from the FC Tech Employee Handbook, the FC Tech Student Handbook, the NECHE-self disclosure report, and publicly available statements and reports.
This section partly draws its inspiration from the recently affirmed commitment to Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom by the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In December of 2022, 163 MIT faculty members signed a statement as open signatories supporting the official adoption of the Chicago Principles of Free Speech by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“We, the undersigned MIT faculty members, urge that the Institute improve its written commitment to academic freedom and free expression by officially adopting the Chicago Principles, as articulated in a 2014 University of Chicago report. The Principles have been adopted by Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, BU, and 78 other universities and colleges.”
As Franklin Cummings Tech has already articulated a commitment to academic freedom and a governing body of another internationally recognized institute of technology has already formally declared its commitment to these principles in the form of a public statement of affirmation, the Senate’s aspirational statement is not far away from the eventuality of formally adopting these principles in the future, which is likely to occur through a formal voting process at a later time.
There is already formal precedent at the college.
In the Franklin Cummings Tech Employee Handbook, the following statement on page 50 reflects the college’s support for academic freedom (which exists alongside faculty duties and obligations).
“Academic freedom derives from the nature of the quest for knowledge. It is essential to the full search for truth and[for] its free exposition, applies to both teaching and research, and shall not be abridged or abused. Academic freedom does not relieve the faculty of those duties and obligations that are inherent in the employer-employee relationship.”
Additionally, in the Employee Handbook’s description of the college’s policy and procedures for addressing sexual misconduct, the college reaffirms on page 66 that nothing in the policy “shall be construed to abridge academic freedom, principles of free speech, or… [Franklin Cummings Tech’s] educational mission.”
The dedication to academic freedom can also be found on page 90 in the NECHE self-study public disclosure report. The New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) re-accredited Franklin Cummings Tech last year in part due to this self-study and the college’s plans for continual improvement based on its contents. In this report, the college declares a commitment to academic freedom, making reference to the Franklin Cummings Tech Employee Handbook:
“Academic Research and Integrity – … [Franklin Cummings Tech] promotes the freedom to teach and study, examine data, and question assumptions. The college’s Academic Freedom Policy is clearly spelled out in the Faculty Academic Policies and Practices section of the … [Franklin Cummings Tech] Employee Handbook, which all faculty and staff must review and sign each year.”
The college goes even further in its affirmation of academic freedom in the …[Franklin Cummings Tech] Student Handbook. On page 29, the college addresses the problem of online harassment and misconduct and states that “the policies of [Franklin Cummings Tech] are written and interpreted broadly to include online and cyber manifestations” of any of the behaviors prohibited by the college.
The college’s commitment to creating a safe environment, in the digital age in which online harassment is rife, rightly emphasizes that online activities should not interfere with the college community’s mission and the right of its students and employees to feel free to pursue their work without the added stress of disruptive online communications. For this reason, the college affirms the need for its community members to practice “good digital citizenship”.
The following description from the student handbook describes what “good digital citizens” should avoid:
“Members of the community are encouraged to be good digital citizens and to refrain from online misconduct, such as feeding anonymous gossip sites, sharing inappropriate content via social media, unwelcome sexting, revenge porn, breaches of privacy, or otherwise using the ease of transmission and/or anonymity of the Internet or other technology to harm another member of the … [Franklin Cummings Tech] community.”
The college goes further in the student handbook in not only discouraging discriminatory harassment but in the protection of academic freedom.
On page 31 of the student handbook, in section 15, the college lays out its policy on discriminatory harassment in the following passage:
“Students, staff, administrators, and faculty are entitled to an employment and educational environment that is free of discriminatory harassment… [Franklin Cummings Tech’s] harassment policy is not meant to inhibit or prohibit educational content or discussions inside or outside of the classroom that include relevant, but controversial or sensitive subject matters protected by academic freedom.”
Once again, in its formal policy, the college re-affirms the protection of free speech and even invokes the 1st Amendment in its commitment:
“When speech or conduct is protected by academic freedom, and/or the first amendment it will not be considered a violation of … [Franklin Cummings Tech] policy, though supportive measures will be offered to those impacted.”
Finally, in its further explanations around discriminatory harassment, Franklin Cummings Tech makes clear distinctions between what constitutes harassment (especially against “any member or group of the community on the basis of actual or perceived membership in a class protected by policy or law”), and the right the college reserves to address conduct even in a case that:
1) does not rise to the level of creating a hostile environment, or
2) that is of a generic nature and not based on a protected status.
An important element is that the college affirms that “addressing conduct that doesn’t rise to the level of harassment or creating a hostile environment “will not result in the imposition of discipline under … [Franklin Cummings Tech] policy, but may be addressed through respectful conversation, remedial actions, education, effective Alternate Resolution, and/or other informal resolution mechanisms.”
This indicates that there is some room left for freedom of speech and expression and for interventions around employees’ speech and expression that—while meriting reasonable intervention—does not necessarily rise to a level that requires “the imposition of discipline” under the college’s policies.
D. Summary of Senate’s Aspirational Statement on Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom
In 2023, at the time of this newly ratified document of the Franklin Cummings Senate Charter and Bylaws, the college created an updated vision statement:
“To achieve economic and social impact through dynamic and entrepreneurial curricula that develop diverse tech talent for our region and to help graduates thrive by building generational wealth.”
When considering the current era in which social issues are placed front and center in nation’s conversations, the increasing polarization and the coarsening of public discourse, and Franklin Cummings Tech’s commitment as a Minority Serving Institute (MSI) to creating career opportunities for students from marginalized groups,generational wealth for our students’ communities and families, a diversified workforce in the Greater Boston region and beyond, the public articulation of unambiguous support for the Chicago Principles or a modified version of those principles would offer both formal and informal mechanisms for the freedom of thought, speech, and conscience.
And for an institute of technology that has a vision for building a more diverse workforce and a more inclusive society, the freedom to deliberate, study, look into, think about, analyze, and to consider multiple variables in determining the right action forward in the areas of technology and society itself must be protected.
It is the hope of the Franklin Cummings College Senate that any changes to official policies and/or the employee and student related documents mentioned in this section in the areas of Freedom of Speech, Academic Freedom, and the 1st Amendment include the participation of the Senate and other stakeholder groups so that such a decision on a monumental issue reflects the highest principles of shared governance in accordance with the accreditation standards elucidated in the New England Commission for Higher Education (NECHE) .
A genuinely collaborative process towards the discovery and rediscovery of the best philosophy and highest practices related to Freedom of Speech, Academic, Freedom, and the 1st Amendment would be a firm recognition that this freedom—in the words of the college’s own articulated policy— “is essential to the full search for truth and it's free exposition.”