RPI needs to live up to the promise of free speech – Times Union

On Nov. 23, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute selected its new president to take the helm from outgoing president Shirley Ann Jackson: Martin A. Schmidt, currently the provost of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As Schmidt comes into office, it is time for him to speak up for free speech and for RPI to put freedom of expression front and center the important soul searching that Jacksons administration didnt have the character to undertake because it was too busy censoring its critics.

RPI has a long history of illiberalism under Jacksons 22-year watch, dating back to its suppression of faculty criticism of the Iraq war and censorship of student critics. Even today, the institute is facing allegations that it suppressed negative faculty and staff feedback in an employee climate survey the latest in RPIs depressingly long line of failures to uphold principles of free expression.

The Times Union obtained an internal email purporting to show RPI officials trying to suppress the results of the survey, which found a general fear-based, unhealthy, stifling culture across the RPI campus. A conversation between a school official and the alumnus who conducted the survey saw the official repeatedly stress how the survey findings needed to be presented in a positive manner, the alumnus wrote in the email, which was sent to RPI faculty.

The surveys findings, and the schools conduct in trying to spin them dishonestly, both track with the work of my organization, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a campus rights group, regarding RPI. As a private institution, RPI is not bound by the First Amendment, but it still makes strong promises of freedom of expression to its students promises the school has repeatedly failed to uphold, leading to disturbing effects.

RPI has earned itself a red light rating FIREs worst rating for its speech policies. This, as well as the fact that the school placed 149th out of 154th nationally in FIREs 2021 College Free Speech Rankings, reflects a hostile environment for the expressive rights of students and faculty alike.

That chill has come from the top of RPIs administration, which has gone to absurd lengths to censor student critics. In 2018, school security officers blocked students outside a hockey game from passing out buttons and literature related to an initiative to preserve a student-run union on campus. When the students argued that they were on a public sidewalk and not on RPIs property, the officers cited eminent domain. (Thats not how eminent domain works.)

The incident was one of a number of conflicts over a movement on campus for the preservation of a student-governed union that saw students who advocated for its independence subjected to extreme censorship measures. Students filmed school employees tearing down pro-student union flyers, and RPI hired Troy police to film student demonstrators all while building a fence through a significant part of campus to keep student demonstrations away from Jacksons black-tie fundraiser.

When civil liberties advocates raised questions, RPI did worse than ignore their advice; it actively made things worse. After the institute suppressed student speech under a solicitation policy, FIRE and the New York Civil Liberties Union pointed out that RPI had no such policy and that, even if it did, it would imperil the freedom of speech RPI promises its students. So, told that they were enforcing a non-existent policy, RPIs administration told students in public, on video that administrators need a controlled environment for speech. Then they set out to write the policy, requiring students to get administrators express permission to hand out anything in writing on campus.

Repeated suppression of student speech has consequences for the campus climate, as demonstrated by the responses of RPI students surveyed for FIREs rankings about the campus environment.

I feel that the administration at RPI actively fights against its student's [sic] rights to free speech, one student said.

I have never felt unable to express myself but I know those who have had campaign posters or articles in the newspaper taken down, said another.

FIRE has been on RPIs case for years. Early last year, FIRE traveled to the schools campus to give RPI a Lifetime Censorship Award for pervasively censoring its students, and also named the school one of the worst 10 colleges for free speech in the country.

How the institute will fare under Schmidt remains to be seen. He recently faced a controversy over academic freedom at MIT when he defended the disinvitation of Dorian Abbott, a geophysicist who has criticised aspects of affirmative action.

There is no point to having promises of free expression if the school will not uphold them. Repeated violations of free expression have real chilling effects on both faculty and students alike. Its time for RPI to live up to its promises and make itself a better place for free speech.

Graham Piro is a program officer for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Educations Individual Rights Defense Program (FIRE). https://thefire.org/alarm

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RPI needs to live up to the promise of free speech - Times Union