Higher education has lost the trust of many Americans due, in part, to the fact that too many of our students feel their beliefs and opinions are unwelcome. Addressing this on the Berkeley campus must be among our top priorities. Our mission and values dictate that we do so: It is the constructive collision of ideas that has made American universities unparalleled engines of innovation and invention. And, democracy itself depends on our ability to produce graduates able to navigate and thrive among differences of opinion.
We are the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement and a campus that provides unwavering support for the First Amendment; yet, I am among the first to admit that Berkeley’s marketplace of ideas is not as open as it could and should be. Maintaining a robust marketplace of ideas is the prime justification for free speech, based on the belief that the free, competitive exchange of ideas enables the best, most truthful ideas to prevail.
As an economist, I know full well that open competition is essential to the creation of superior goods and services. I also know that a well-functioning marketplace can deliver much better outcomes if it is well-designed and governed by clear norms and rules. For example, is there easy access on both the supply and demand sides? Do the rules prevent any one actor from monopolizing the market?
Berkeley is working, as I believe all universities should, to ensure that we are and will remain a forum open to all. That there is access for all sides of any debate and that no side is able to monopolize. To those ends, we are launching new courses and programs to prepare and encourage students to engage in discourse across divides, and to provide our community members with the tools and skills necessary for give and take. A shining example is our online course “Openness to Opposing Views,” in which campus leaders and over 20 faculty share proven approaches to navigating disagreement. Since its summer inception, we already have more than 5,000 participants.
A well-functioning market is also able to match demand and supply. As we work to increase “demand” for constructive debate, we must also ensure there is a robust “supply” of ideas. That’s why student organizations and academic departments are encouraged to invite speakers of their choice without regard for their beliefs and perspectives. It matters not to us whether it is the College Republicans or the Young Democratic Socialists; all voices should be heard. It’s why I am excited by the success and growth of the Berkeley Liberty Initiative, a donor-funded speaker series that describes its mission as fostering “a campus culture that embraces learning through respectful open dialogue and engagement with diverse viewpoints.”
We must also maintain the norms and rules that support marketplace efficacy and ease of participation for our students. For example, we have created a new position called Campus Community Safety Specialist. Their job is to seek compliance with our “Time, Place, and Manner” rules that ensure expressive activities can take place on campus without infringing on the rights of others, or disrupting the academic or administrative operations of the university. Those positions and rules, along with other actions we are taking, reduce the chance that a “heckler’s veto” or other impermissible disruptions will inhibit the flow of ideas within Berkeley’s marketplace.
Markets function best when the government—or, in our case, the campus administration—refrains from trying to determine the winners and losers. That is why I support institutional restraint in our campus communications and actions. This is not simply a matter of the law and UC policy, which require us to be nonpartisan. Avoiding comment or action in support of particular partisan perspectives helps ensure that the campus does not have a chilling effect on discourse, and supports our commitment to a campus community where all feel welcome.
It was my iconic predecessor, Clark Kerr, who said, “The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.” That unassailable goal is directly supported by Berkeley’s Principles of Community, which call for “ensuring freedom of expression and dialogue that elicits the full spectrum of views held by our varied communities” while also calling on us to “respect the differences as well as the commonalities that bring us together and call for civility and respect in our personal interactions.” A great university equips its students to be both good consumers—able to evaluate new ideas open-mindedly—and good sellers—able to be effective and respectful advocates for their views—in the marketplaces of ideas they will encounter, both on campus and beyond.
