{"id":41899,"date":"2026-02-25T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T15:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=41899"},"modified":"2026-03-06T12:37:56","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:37:56","slug":"from-moral-authority-to-risk-management-how-university-presidents-stopped-speaking-their-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/from-moral-authority-to-risk-management-how-university-presidents-stopped-speaking-their-minds\/","title":{"rendered":"From moral authority to risk management: How university presidents stopped speaking their minds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Austin Sarat<\/a>, Amherst College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the 20th century, college and university presidents spoke out on everything, from wars to civil rights struggles, with a sense of moral authority<\/a> attempting to guide the course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their language was typically direct and free of jargon<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemocracy is the best form of government. It is worth dying for,\u201d Robert M. Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago, said during a June 1940 convocation<\/a> address, a year and a half before the U.S. formally entered World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2023 and the start of the Israel-Hamas war, a growing number of university and college presidents have remained silent<\/a> on politics. Others have used ambiguous language that makes them seem like \u201cneutral bureaucrats<\/a>,\u201d as Wesleyan University President Michael S. Roth wrote in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nearly 150 universities adopted \u201cinstitutional neutrality\u201d pledges<\/a> from 2023 through the end of 2024. This coincided with university leaders responding to Palestinian rights<\/a> protests on their campuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This kind of neutral approach was on display in December 2023, when Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik asked several university presidents<\/a> during a House of Representatives committee hearing if \u201ccalling for the genocide of Jews\u201d would violate their schools\u2019 rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The presidents of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania all answered vaguely, with hesitation<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the speech turns into conduct it can be harassment, yes,\u201d said Elizabeth Magill<\/a>, then president of University of Pennsylvania. \u201cIt is a context-dependent decision, Congresswoman,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hedging, evading and speaking in platitudes has become the order of the day<\/a> for university leaders, who are facing political and financial pressure under the Trump administration. Their communication style seems scripted by lawyers<\/a> and communications officials, who are tasked with trying to keep universities out of trouble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My scholarship<\/a> on language and rhetoric suggests<\/a> that how people speak \u2013 not just what they say \u2013 matters. This is especially true for university presidents and others in leadership positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Liz Magill, former president of the University of Pennsylvania, center left, is seen with other university presidents during a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing in December 2023. Kevin Dietsch\/Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Moral leadership in higher education<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 1921, Alexander Meiklejohn<\/a>, then president of Amherst College, understood the importance of speaking on moral and political issues. He spoke out<\/a> forcefully during a raging national controversy \u2013 namely, how the U.S. should respond to rising numbers of immigrants<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calvin Coolidge, an Amherst grad and then vice president of the U.S., was among the political leaders<\/a> who advocated for an immigration quota system favoring northern Europeans over immigrants from southern Europe or Asia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coolidge backed xenophobic immigration policies in 1921, then writing<\/a>: \u201cThere are racial considerations too grave to be brushed aside for any sentimental reasons. Biological laws tell us that certain divergent people will not mix or blend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meiklejohn opposed immigration quotas<\/a>, and he publicly said in 1921 that America could either \u201cbe an Anglo-Saxon aristocracy of culture or a Democracy,\u201d but not both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One year after he became president, Coolidge made his choice when he signed the Immigration Act into law in 1924<\/a>. This law created strict immigration quotas, dependent on people\u2019s nationality, and barred people from Asia from entering the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

College presidents oppose the Vietnam War<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Decades later, university presidents like Kingman Brewster Jr. at Yale<\/a> and Theodore Hesburgh at Notre Dame<\/a> publicly opposed the U.S. becoming involved in the Vietnam War \u2013 without hesitation or legalistic qualifiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe cannot urge students to have the courage to speak out unless we are willing to do so ourselves,\u201d Hesburgh said<\/a> in 1970.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1971, Brewster publicly criticized<\/a> the U.S. attacks on Southeast Asia, saying the bombings showed that \u201cAmerica had no concern for the sanctity of human life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His views made headlines in The New York Times<\/a> and attracted the ire of Vice President Spiro Agnew, who criticized him<\/a> in several speeches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Twenty-five years later, Howard Shapiro, at the time the president of Princeton University, praised the vocal, \u201cmoral\u201d leadership<\/a> that Brewster and Hersburgh showed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He noted: \u201cThere was a time when great figures presided over our nation\u2019s campuses \u2013 intellectual giants who led their faculty, students, alumni, trustees, and nation with grace, vision, and moral purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risk management takes center stage<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Current university presidents who are choosing neutral<\/a> and cautious<\/a> approaches to political issues have reason to watch what they say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trump administration has made widespread cuts<\/a> to university funding, pressured schools<\/a> into deals to restore their funding, and launched investigations into several schools<\/a> for civil rights violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Others in higher education leadership roles have seen how the presidents of Harvard<\/a> and the University of Pennsylvania<\/a> dramatically resigned in 2023 amid widespread criticism over their response to campus protests and reports of antisemitism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The presidents of Columbia University<\/a> and the University of Virginia<\/a> also resigned in 2024 and 2025, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When university presidents do speak publicly on the Trump administration\u2019s cuts to research funding and resulting job losses on their campuses, their language is rife with ambiguity and familiar slogans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber, for example, assured Princeton\u2019s community in a February 2026 letter<\/a> that \u201cWe will sustain our commitments to excellence in teaching and research \u2026 and our other defining values.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs always, we will be guided by the values and principles set out in the University\u2019s mission statement and strategic framework,\u201d Eisgruber added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other prominent<\/a> university and college presidents, meanwhile, write phrases like \u201csustaining our capacity<\/a>\u201d or make a promise to \u201cdo everything I can to ensure we continue to live by our values<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These words sound good, but, to me at least, ultimately mean nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It matters what college presidents say<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is hard to disentangle the full influence that college and university presidents have, and why what they say matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A 2001 survey by the American Council on Education found that<\/a> \u201cthe vast majority of Americans rarely hear college presidents comment on issues of national importance, and when they do, they believe institutional needs rather than those of the students or the wider community drive such comments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the same seems to be true<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their choices about when and how to speak are important because, as law professor James Boyd White writes, what people say and write<\/a> \u201chelps establish an identity, or what the Greeks called an ethos \u2013 for oneself, for one\u2019s audience, and for those one talks about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On college campuses and beyond, leaders\u2019 words create \u201ca community of people, talking to and about each other,\u201d according to White.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is never an easy job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as Wesleyan University President Roth noted, it is always an important one, especially in a place like a university<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Austin Sarat<\/a>, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Austin Sarat, Amherst College Throughout the 20th century, college and university presidents spoke out on everything, from wars to civil rights struggles, with a sense of moral authority attempting to guide the course. Their language was typically direct and free of jargon. \u201cDemocracy is the best form of government. It is worth dying for,\u201d Robert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":41900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8025,292,295,10,296,36,4,38],"tags":[17486,1614,687,885,891,886,860,3050,6351,700,9382,1602],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41982,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41899\/revisions\/41982"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}