Sir Peter Gluckman’s speech to the Tertiary Education Union

November 8 2024

Concepts like academic freedom, freedom of speech, and institutional autonomy should be simple to understand and should, in an ideal world, not need to cause debate. But the reason they are not simple and are contentious is that they have become increasingly confused by other agendas in a more polarized world where the nature of discourse and how it is heard has changed.

As I chair the University Advisory Group, I will focus my remarks on the local context, but I must point out very clearly that I am giving a strictly personal view, not that of the Group.

The liberal democratic tradition requires support for the concept of freedom of speech. But in all countries, even in the United States with its first amendment, there are some limits. In many countries those limits are enshrined partly in law – especially those associated with incitement of violence. But there are other implied limits as well. Slander and libel law, though now undermined by social media imply broader limits:  here the major defense is one of truth in the claims – but anonymity and the abbreviated and pervasive nature of social media posts make such restrictions ineffective. And across the democratic world, disinformation has become a tool of political and social manipulation – undermining the very concept of democracy.

The law is having difficulty resolving the issue of boundaries on free speech. The discussion and debates about hate speech legislation are complex with differing views across the political spectra. Because of the changing information environment so much becomes a matter of unnuanced and often anonymous rhetoric rather than informed discussion. Words are taken out of context, everything becomes immediately polarized and extreme views magnified.

And many limits on free speech are informal and socially constrained. All of us restrict what we might say in some social gatherings. We would never say face to face what some might anonymously say in the cyber world. An employee will often restrict what they might say to protect their employment – whistleblower legislation is an attempt to deal with that fear.  

And universities have a particular challenge for several reasons. First, they are communities of scholars and students, and the social contract allows the University community the special role of being critic and conscience of society. Scholars by their very nature need to debate and challenge and here we interface with the concepts of academic freedom about which I will say more soon.  

Society has changed and tolerance for ideological discord has declined, and universities should be, but are not immune. Advancing scholarship and intellectual discourse is at the heart of a university. It must not shut down difficult but civil conversation. And there are specific internal issues.

Universities by their inherent nature are places of social and political debate. Indeed, that is part of their value to a democracy. The debate must be able to happen within the restrictions made by law, but it must not interfere with academic freedom. And here the issue is complicated by the debate over whether universities are like Hyde Park corner where any random person can speak, or whether the university has a right to determine if those who are not staff, students, external academics or experts can speak on campus. The campus is a place for Intellectual argument not rabble rousing. Gaming can happen on both sides of this matter, and this makes the life of vice chancellors difficult. If universities are perceived to be driving an ideology or political agenda in determining what happens on campus, then societal and political antenna are raised. And universities across the liberal democratic world are becoming caught in the headlights.

And the nature of the student body has changed. There is much evidence that the emergent adult of today has more vulnerable socio-emotional development than say three decades ago. I have written much about why that is the case as have others.  Levels of anxiety and depression in the late teenager and young adult are almost three times higher than two decades ago. And this creates an enormous challenge for universities – both in terms of pastoral care and how they approach student demands for safe spaces and trigger warnings.

Many, particularly young people, appear less prepared to confront difficult and challenging issues or debate issues that they may not be comfortable with. The self-selected echo chambers of social media have likely played a major role in creating this situation. But scholarship-based learning and indeed being equipped for a more complex world require the capacity to do so. Universities especially in the USA have struggled with how to address this. We have been less affected, but universities must not resile in their teaching and research from the realities of contested concepts, ideas and knowledge.

Speech may not be intended to do harm, but it may be perceived by a potentially vulnerable listener as doing harm. But the limit on free speech must be on the intent of the speaker, not how it is perceived.  In accusing someone of arson rather than negligence, or murder rather than manslaughter, the onus is on the accuser to prove the intent, not the accused to prove their innocence. Universities have struggled with this distinction world-wide.

And there may be a further factor – unlike in some other jurisdictions the Vice Chancellor wears two hats – as employer and academic head. There are growing reports of academics feeling constraining in what they say for fear of their employer’s responses. This too overlaps with issues of academic freedom and academic governance which is why I started with freedom of speech before discussing academic freedom itself.

All eight universities in New Zealand are Crown entities and must serve a broad range of national interests. But while they have institutional structure, in practical reality they are communities of scholars who hopefully represent a diversity of perspectives and scholarship-informed understandings on many matters – some of which might be highly contentious.  There is absolutely no doubt that within the limits of the law, there can be no formal restrictions on freedom of speech unless written with justification into an employment contract for reasons of confidentiality, as in the case of industries in the financial sector. But it would be totally inappropriate for a university to put into an employment contract for an academic that they are restricted beyond the law in what they can say as an individual and that includes critique of the institution itself.

But what about the institution itself. Can it speak for its diverse community of staff and students who very definition will encompass the full spectrum of views on most matters. The growing, but not universal, consensus is that it cannot and should not with one caveated exemption. The exception is when the positioning of universities themselves is under discussion.  A public university should be not ideologically shaped. The increasing use of frameworks such as the recent 2024 Harvard report on Institutional Voice in the University  gives the solid reasons why. The report is worth reading in its entirety.

But this approach is not universally accepted. There are scholars of higher education who argue that universities can shape and should shape the direction of a community by being ideologically positioned. But that is a slippery slope, which ultimately would harm democracy.

So now let us now turn more directly to the concept of academic freedom. The Education and Training Act under which universities operate defines academic freedom. It states in part:

The freedom of academic staff and students, within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas, and to state controversial or unpopular opinions:

The freedom of the institution and its staff to regulate the subject matter of courses taught at the institution:

There are some potential challenges depending on how one reads the Act.  For example, the Act does not clarify the boundaries between the institution and the staff member or department in determining subject matter.

Clearly a staff member could not take an advertised course in physics and instead then go and teach French or sociology.  The course must align with what it claims to teach. Clearly the institution must decide whether physics is to be taught or not but does the institution have the right to override what the academic leaders in that discipline believe should be taught?  Clearly, the institution must have quality control responsibilities mediated through strong academic governance and review processes. But the actual content within that framing is largely a matter for the individual academic. But even here there is no carte blanche for a sole individual. In an academic department, one would expect the academic staff to agree on the content of core course in the discipline of the department or faculty. 

But what if the institution insists of the framing of what is taught in a way that a scholarly academic disagrees with. It is logical in a course on seismology to teach about tectonic plates, subduction zones and so forth. But it would not be logical to expect the lecturer to teach about other non-scientific theories of earthquakes as if it was science.

And this is where the tension has arisen in NZ universities. Some institutions are inserting into science curricula, non-scientific content arguably for the right reasons but doing so in the wrong way. The science of seismology is only a matter for seismological scientists to determine and teach. But I would argue all scientists need a course in the civics of science including ethics, philosophy of science, science communication and the relationship between science and other knowledge systems including religion and indigenous knowledge appropriate to the context they are teaching within. Doing that is a very different matter from affecting disciplinary teaching. In my view all scientists need training in the civics of science but let us distinguish that from undermining the integrity of disciplines. And as an individual who has written a lot about transdisciplinarity, that does not mean conflating knowledge systems within underlying disciplinary teaching.

No-one of any ideological persuasion should object to all science graduates knowing the context in which they will operate; ethically, historically, philosophical and culturally and with an understanding of how science interacts with other knowledge systems. Similarly, scholars of social sciences and the humanities need to have a sense of the scientific and technological world around them. All students especially in a system where we do not have graduate entry into professional programmes, can benefit from such approaches.

But the question then must be asked: are we now seeing approaches which are compromising academic freedom and smell of a potential ideological or political agenda.  If so, this would undermine the social contract between a public university and society – a matter I shall return to.

But there can be limits on academic freedom at the individual level. The institution has every right not to employ a geography lecturer who is teaching in geography that the world is flat or a geology lecturer who believes the world is only 6000 years old because of religious convictions. Such beliefs are outside the limits of acceptable scholarship in the discipline. These two extreme examples are perhaps really a form of academic incompetence and such individuals would likely not be employed. But what to do if the dissonance only becomes clear after employment?  Here is a grey area – what if a lecturer in public health appears as a vocal antivaccine individual? The issues get even more complex in values laden areas – for example a climate sceptic teaching in an environmental course.

Freedom of speech and academic freedom overlap but are not synonymous. An academic must be free as an academic to speak on their subject of expertise broadly defined. And they have rights as citizens to freedom of speech on anything. But if they conflate their academic position with speaking on a subject that they have no academic standing or credibility in, they should do so as a citizen not as an expert, and that should be made clear. For like it or not, academic status confers a sense of trust and elitism making the voice more influential. The Japan Council of Science developed guidelines after the Fukushima tragedy stating that when a scientist is speaking in a way dissonant from the consensus, they should say so and explain why.

But it is difficult to set hard and fast rules. Is there a point when freedom of speech on a non-academic matter could compromise the institution and bring it into disrepute and create and employment matter? Let’s take a hypothetical: a reputable academic in particle physics comes out in public as a rampant Nazi advocating for armed rebellion against the state. First, he would likely break several laws in most democracies but beyond that what could or should be the institutional response? Likely it must be left to civic law to deal with it as uncomfortable a position as it might be.  But it would be different if their ideology entered their lectures or in the way exam questions were framed – then the institution could argue political manipulation is taking place and that is not the role of the university to promote politics of any kind. But again, what if the student body or colleagues felt fearful and there was evidence that fear was justified. What does the institution do here? If the course is boycotted, would it then be an easier employment matter?

And now I want to come very briefly to the issue of institutional autonomy. It is not absolute, but Universities are distinctive in that the Crown has very limited powers to intervene. The Crown defines many aspects of what a university does in its contracting. For example, over disposal of capital assets or defining the number of student places they are prepared to pay for and in some cases such as medicine set a limit on the number of students in the course.

And here is my final point: Academic freedom and institutional autonomy exist because of an implied social contract between societies and universities to give them special rights. But with rights come responsibilities and if those responsibilities are not adhered to, then the social contract is compromised. In a world which is much more contentious, with growing social polarisation, where facts can be manipulated and disinformation is easy to project, universities must not fall into a trap. They must stick to the social contract and respect that autonomy is not absolute – they can be tools of a specific ideology or politics as has happened in the past in Nazi Germany and sadly now in many non-democratic countries.

Protection of clear principles of academic freedom is a compelling reason why strong academic governance thorough academic boards or Senates must exist, yet in many institutions, even here, such a role has declined.  This is an unfortunate trend which could have very problematic consequences fundamentally altering what universities are.

Given greater polarisation around the developed world politicians are rightly or wrongly looking hard at universities and whether they are respecting the social contract or not. This examination could be dangerous, but it is also somewhat understandable in the context of our times if universities do not protect the social contract and go beyond these fuzzy boundaries I have described.  My argument is simple. If universities ensure they are ideologically neutral and academic freedoms are protected, then the institutions will thrive.  University Councils, vice chancellors and staff all have a responsibility to sustain this social contract: it underwrites one of the most important institutions of a democratic society.