As the University of Chicago community celebrates the 10th anniversary of the Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression—commonly known as the Chicago Principles— the Maroon is taking a look at the impact that the Chicago Principles have had on college campuses across the country. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, 112 schools have created official policies of free speech modeled after the Chicago Principles since they were written.
In examining the national rate of adoption of the Chicago Principles, the overall rate has remained relatively constant, apart from 2018 to 2020, when the nation saw a steeper rate of adoption. This seems to be for a variety of reasons. Many schools in Florida adopted the Chicago Principles in part due to Governor Ron DeSantis, who pressured institutions to adopt more rigorous free speech policies. This is one example of the ways in which political pressure has influenced institutions’ decisions to adopt the Chicago Principles.
Looking forward, many more universities may be adopting the Chicago Principles or similar sets of free speech principles because of a section of the End Woke Higher Education Act (H.R.3724). The act, which encourages higher education institutions to adopt sets of free speech guidelines based on the Chicago Principles, has passed in the House of Representatives and is likely to pass through the Republican-controlled Senate.
Claremont McKenna
One of the earliest institutions to adopt the Principles was Claremont McKenna College, in May 2016. President Hiram Chodosh said in an interview with the Maroon that at the time, Claremont McKenna adopted the Principles because “first, our faculty, and second, our Board of Trustees viewed the Chicago Principles as completely consistent with our own principles and policies. Endorsing them both reinforced our own principles and allowed us to express support to external audiences.”
However, Claremont McKenna extends their philosophy past freedom of speech. “The freedom to speak up is foundational; however, we believe it is insufficient. We also believe in the value of engaging different viewpoints, not just the expression of one.… The commitment to viewpoint diversity as foundational to learning is a key element in our approach,” Chodosh said.
Claremont McKenna commits to freedom of expression and inquiry through an initiative called “Open Academy,” which aims to facilitate constructive dialogue through workshops, dialogue dinners, and classes co-taught by instructors from different departments.
“We should always endeavor to understand why we disagree, to reconcile how we understand our disagreements, to mitigate the conflict that may follow, even to resolve them, when we can,” Chodosh said.
Vanderbilt
Vanderbilt University was another early adopter of the Principles, implementing them in August 2016. At Vanderbilt, the university seeks to instill principles of free expression early in students’ academic careers through an orientation program launched in August 2023 called “Dialogue Vanderbilt,” a program designed to encourage open dialogue within the Vanderbilt community.
In an interview with the Maroon, Vanderbilt chancellor and former UChicago provost Daniel Diermeier said, “We really want to make sure our students know [free expression] is a part of who we are. We have two things that are very important to us. One thing is a pledge that our students sign called the ‘Community Creed,’ which students wrote themselves.” According to the Vanderbilt Student Government website, “The Community Creed is a student-initiated statement of the values to which the Vanderbilt community aspires.”
“This year something we had for the first time was a discussion after students arrived on campus,” Diermeier said. In this discussion, Diermeier spoke with the freshman class and the editor of the Vanderbilt student newspaper about what free speech is and why it is important.
“[Free speech principles] are becoming part of the student culture now and a point of pride and distinction,” Diermeier said. Although Vanderbilt officially endorsed the Principles in 2016, its core practices have a longer history. “The Stone Report [Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression] really was there to codify existing practice. It wasn’t there to do something new.”
Diermeier is a strong advocate of the Principles. “We firmly believe that you can only have a transformative education if students are really able to fully engage with ideas in a way that’s free from concerns of censorship or retribution,” Diermeier said. “These principles instantiate that so we have guidelines and a framework where we can make our decisions to make sure they align with our purpose.”
American University
American University (AU) initially adopted the Chicago Principles in 2015 and updated its free speech policies in 2022. Associate professor of government Thomas Merrill was a part of the revision group, headed by members of the AU Campus Life Department, that updated their university’s set of free speech guidelines in 2022. “When I started, I thought that the folks at campus life were gonna be like, ‘We have to protect these students, and they’re snowflakes, and we need trigger warnings,’ but it was kind of the opposite,” Merrill told the Maroon. “In the dorms and clubs and things like that, they deal with a lot more speech controversies than people do in the classroom.”
While American University’s set of free speech guidelines mirrors the Chicago Principles, it is not a replica. “I’m a big fan of the Chicago Principles, but AU is a distinct community, and we needed something that people in our community could see themselves in and own,” Merrill said.
Following protests on AU’s campus around the Israel–Hamas war, the university took certain actions restrictive of free speech, such as prohibiting indoor protests. However, Merrill said, “When people protested, when they wanted to say that the university had got something wrong, they cited our statement. And that to me was the sign that we had gotten something right, that we had established a standard to which members of the community could look.”
As a professor, Merrill understands that free speech cannot always be unlimited. “The university has competing commitments,” Merrill said. “We’re trying to create a culture based on the ethos of inquiry. But it is also true—and sometimes free-expression people forget this—that for us to do that, when I go into a classroom, I have to invite every student into the conversation.”
“If I ask myself, ‘Is my classroom a free speech zone?’ the answer is no. The reason is that I don’t allow people to call each other names; I’m sensitive about the fact that some topics are going to be difficult for some people to talk about in public… so as a teacher, it’s important to see this not just as a matter of rights, but as a matter of trying to create a framework for a particular type of culture,” Merrill said.
Northwestern
Although some universities officially endorsed sets of free speech principles modeled after the Chicago Principles close to a decade ago, many institutions have adopted them more recently due to pressures on administrations caused by campus protests last spring. Northwestern University is one of the most recent schools to adopt a set of free speech principles modeled after the Chicago Principles, accomplished in August 2024. Northwestern’s Statement on Free Expression and Institutional Speech expresses that “all members of our community may choose to speak publicly on controversial topics and to identify themselves as a member of our community, consistent with our policies and terms of employment.”
Some schools’ free speech statements mirror the Chicago Principles but maintain significant differences. According to their statement on free speech, Brandeis University encourages open dialogue and sharing of opinions but is more restrictive of free speech than UChicago. Brandeis’s official statement on free speech and expression states, “The freedom to debate and discuss ideas does not mean that individuals may say whatever they wish, wherever they wish, or however they wish.”
This establishes a narrower acceptance of free speech than the Chicago Principles, which allow for free speech even if such speech is offensive or highly controversial. While Brandeis encourages open dialogue, it prioritizes fostering “a just and inclusive campus culture.”
