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In November 2021, just months after Provost Gretchen Ritter and Senior Vice President Allen Groves arrived at Syracuse University, conversations among the administration began about a “Syracuse Statement” on free expression and academic freedom.

Since then, those working on the statement have posed themselves a series of questions: When do we want to form the committee? What do we want it to look like? What approach do we want to take?

This semester, most of those questions are being answered. After plans to develop the statement were announced during a University Senate meeting on Dec. 13, a working group related to the statement has had four meetings as of Thursday, Groves said. Having completed two larger public forums with trips to 113 Euclid and the Barner-McDuffie House, formerly 119 Euclid, the group is looking for further feedback.

“We’re really thinking about the Syracuse Statement as a collective campus expression about our commitments in this area,” Ritter said. “In terms of not just academic freedom but freedom of expression more broadly, which applies to every member of our campus — the students, the staff and the faculty.”

A university spokesperson confirmed there is no official release date for the Syracuse Statement. Ritter and Groves also said it is not being developed in response to events like #NotAgainSU or the Israel-Hamas war, in particular.

“There have been ongoing conversations about freedom of speech, academic freedom, for many years now,” Ritter said. “It’s fair to say it’s a good time to make clear our values given the other things happening in the world, but it’s not intended as a response to the moment.”

One of the first notable statements about free expression on a college campus came from the University of Chicago in 2014, known as the “Chicago Principles.” Over 100 universities endorsed UChicago’s document or something similar, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. FIRE’s college free speech rankings lists SU as 107th out of the 248 surveyed institutions.

Ritter and Groves said they studied the “Chicago Principles” as well as similar endeavors from smaller public and private universities.

“We’re trying to figure out what are some of the touchstones that we see in these that we like that are good for Syracuse,” Groves said.

Groves, who served as the Associate Vice President and University Dean of Students at the University of Virginia for 14 years, helped release UVA’s “Statements on Free Expression and Free Inquiry” in the spring of 2021. It was “an easier task” than developing the Syracuse Statement, Groves said, because it was for a public university.

“You can’t, as a public institution, choose to take a stance that’s different than the First Amendment,” Groves said. “At a private university like Syracuse, it’s both a harder job, because there aren’t these clearly established frameworks and guardrails, but in some ways, it’s a richer exercise because you have to talk about where you draw the lines.”

The university’s administration has on a few occasions over the past academic year commented on where those lines are drawn. On Nov. 15, Chancellor Kent Syverud said SU was prioritizing student safety over free speech and academic freedom amid the Israel-Hamas war.

Ritter and Groves clarified Syverud’s statement, emphasizing that the First Amendment, like all rights under the Constitution, is not an unregulated right. Ritter gave a common example of the limitations, explaining that someone can’t stand up and yell “fire” in a crowded theater since it endangers people if there’s no real threat.

“What the chancellor was articulating is that we as a university have a commitment and responsibility, not only to our students but to every member of our community, to ensure safety and, particularly, physical safety,” Ritter said.

She added that there have been actual threats to safety on campus with a rise in Islamophobia and antisemitism, and that the administration would prioritize safety when realistic threats are made. Groves doesn’t want the Chancellor’s statement to be misinterpreted as “some type of Draconian crackdown.”

“It’s simply a reminder to people that there are some limits on speech, whether you’re in the public sphere or private,” Groves said.

Following a Nov. 9 protest at which hundreds marched in support of Palestine, Ritter and Groves announced that the university was investigating statements that they said “crossed the line.” In a campus-wide email, they wrote the university learned that a speaker specifically named Jewish organizations during the protest, calling them “complicit” in genocide.

One speaker at the protest criticized the university for allowing Syracuse Hillel and Athletes for Israel, along with a series of other Jewish organizations on campus, to run an event shipping medical and household supplies to Israel. After claiming the event “directly promoted the ethnic cleansing of Gaza,” the speaker added that “denouncing the Israeli state and their acts of genocide is not antisemitism.”

“This kind of reprehensible behavior put a group of our students, based on their identity, at risk of harassment, retaliation and potential violence,” Ritter and Groves wrote.

Ritter and Groves both said the protest itself was peaceful, with Groves citing his interactions with some attendees at the National Veterans Resource Center, only taking issue with that one statement. Groves said the speaker may not have intended to incite violence, but a listener could take the message differently and act on it since the speaker gave the names of organizations whose locations could easily be traced.

Another incident that recently sparked questions of freedom of expression on campus was the usage of the word “intifada” on a sign during a Schine Student Center “study-in” on Dec. 15, 2023.

Instagram account blackatcuse published three videos over two posts showing SU’s Vice President for Student Engagement Rob Hradsky confronting students over a sign that had the phrase “globalize the intifada” on it. Hradsky handed a student a piece of paper, which blackatcuse posted as well.

“You have been asked by a University official to remove flyers with the word Intifada as the University deems these flyers as advocating for genocide which is harassment and a violation of University policy,” the paper read. “You must remove this flyer immediately or will face charges under the Student Conduct Code.”

Groves said that, under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the university was obligated to engage. Ritter said there was no concern for the word “intifada” itself, which translates directly to “shaking off” in English, but that the phrase “globalize the intifada” has been interpreted to suggest violence.

“It’s been associated in particular with what occurred during the second intifada in Israel in which there were bombings and so forth and many people died. It’s because of that association that … we have determined as a university crosses the line,” Ritter said.

However, Ritter and Groves reiterated that the Syracuse Statement will reference none of these incidents. Ritter said it’s not about the conversations of the moment but is intended to be a “statement of principle for our community.”

“It’s talking in a broader sense of what are our values as a community in freedom of expression, academic freedom, including the rights of graduate students, the rights of staff members,” Groves said. “It’s going to say here is how we as a community think free expression should be valued but also where potentially the guardrails are.”

To gather feedback around the statement, Ritter and Groves decided to visit locations where students or faculty would be most comfortable sharing their viewpoints. Groves is going to the law school for a listening session with the Student Bar Association, and both Ritter and Groves are planning to meet with the Graduate Student Organization and the Student Association. Conversations are happening among alumni and faculty groups too.

Ritter said the working group is summarizing feedback as they go to the various forums and that they’ll use the information to refine their work on the statement. A draft of the “Syracuse Statement” will not be public before it’s finalized, but the pair hopes the statement will foster increased community conversation.

At a March 20 University Senate meeting, Ritter said they would hold off on revising the faculty manual, which includes information on academic freedom, until the statement is released.

Ritter wants the statement to be a reminder to the Syracuse community about the importance of academic freedom and the freedom of inquiry. Groves hopes the statement will ease tensions from students and faculty, who he said feel increasingly nervous about articulating viewpoints in the classroom, citing national surveys from the last five to seven years.

Whatever the reception, the two are hoping this statement opens the doors for future statements from the university.

“I think it’s probably valuable for our university community in every generation to think about and articulate their own views on these principles,” Ritter said.

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Published on March 24, 2024 at 10:41 pm

Contact Anish: asvasude@syr.edu | @anish_vasu