UC Berkeley hosted the May Day Conference on Free Inquiry sponsored by the Berkeley Liberty Initiative, or BLI, on Thursday. The discussion focused on academic freedom, threats to free inquiry and trust in universities.
Among the speakers and panelists was Sean Gailmard, campus professor in the political science department, who claimed that one theory that explains President Donald Trump’s recent attacks on universities is that faculty tend to lean “further left” than society while Trump is on the right of the political spectrum.
Tom Ginsburg, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, continued the discussion, noting that in order to support free inquiry, universities should internally reform and construct environments where people can challenge each other without fear of retribution.
“It’s about respecting otherness ... people (i)n university departments many times like to hire people that sound like them, look like them, teach like them, think like them,” said campus professor Déborah Blocker. “But ultimately, that’s not good for the university, and it’s not good for knowledge.”
The conference’s organizing team included members of BLI, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Riverside, Heterodox Academy, or HxA, and the executive committee of the Berkeley Initiative for Free Inquiry.
Smriti Mehta, a conference organizer and co-founder of HxA Campus Community at UC Berkeley, said it was “especially fitting” for campus to host this conference because of its history as the center of the Free Speech Movement.
“Given UC Berkeley’s influence on national trends in higher education, our hope is that by hosting this event, BLI can help position UC Berkeley as a leader among the UCs in shaping the next chapter for public higher education,” Mehta said in an email.
Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier spoke on a panel about public trust in universities.
He claimed that inequality at universities is mainly an issue of perception, and that universities are doing a good job of making education accessible to students.
Brian Rosenberg, currently a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, disagreed with Diermeier, instead claiming that inequality is a fundamental issue at universities.
Rosenberg also argued that universities must “transform (themselves)” before discussing “transforming (their) students.”
“I think the university needs to find the capacity to reform from within, which is a big challenge,” campus professor Panos Papadopoulos said. “It is not set up for that right now but unless (the university reforms), you will always be subject to the whims of externalities.”