STANFORD ALUMNI
FOR FREE SPEECH AND
CRITICAL THINKING

 

September 7, 2026

 

Editor’s note: This week, as an alternative to our regular format, we thought it might be useful to take a break from current events and to revisit instead various statements from university leaders about the purposes of a university and the ongoing challenges to promote and protect free speech and critical thinking.

 

The Threat From Within – former Stanford Provost John Etchemendy

Excerpt:

 

“Universities are a fundamental force of good in the world. At their best, they mine knowledge and understanding, wisdom and insight, and then freely distribute these treasures to society at large. Theirs is not a monopoly on this undertaking, but in the concentration of effort and single-mindedness of purpose, they are truly unique institutions. If Aristotle is right that what defines a human is rationality, then they are the most distinctive, perhaps the pinnacle, of human endeavors.

 

“I share this thought to remind us all why we do what we do -- why we care so much about Stanford and what it represents. But I also say it to voice a concern. Universities are under attack, both from outside and from within.

 

“The threat from outside is apparent. Potential cuts in federal funding would diminish our research enterprise and our ability to fund graduate education. Taxing endowments would limit the support we can give to faculty and the services we can provide our students. Indiscriminate travel restrictions would impede the free exchange of ideas and scholars. All of these threats have intensified in recent years – and recent months have given them a reality that is hard to ignore.

 

“But I’m actually more worried about the threat from within. Over the years, I have watched a growing intolerance at universities in this country -- not intolerance along racial or ethnic or gender lines -- there, we have made laudable progress. Rather, a kind of intellectual intolerance, a political one-sidedness, that is the antithesis of what universities should stand for. It manifests itself in many ways: in the intellectual monocultures that have taken over certain disciplines; in the demands to disinvite speakers and outlaw groups whose views we find offensive; in constant calls for the university itself to take political stands. We decry certain news outlets as echo chambers, while we fail to notice the echo chamber we’ve built around ourselves.

 

“This results in a kind of intellectual blindness that will, in the long run, be more damaging to universities than cuts in federal funding or ill-conceived constraints on immigration. It will be more damaging because we won’t even see it: We will write off those with opposing views as evil or ignorant or stupid, rather than as interlocutors worthy of consideration. We succumb to the all-purpose ad hominem because it is easier and more comforting than rational argument. But when we do, we abandon what is great about this institution we serve.” ...

 

Full text at Stanford Report and as also posted at our Stanford Speaks webpage.

 

See also our Stanford Concerns and our Back to Basics at Stanford webpages and where we, as alumni, have attempted to highlight what we similarly see as threats from within along with suggested responses.

 

The Purposes and Obligations of the University – co-founder and former California Governor and Senator Leland Stanford

 

“We deem it of the first importance that the education of both sexes shall be equally full and complete.... The rights of one sex, political and otherwise, are the same as those of the other sex, and this equality of rights ought to be fully recognized.” (Leland Stanford statement at the first meeting of the Trustees)

 

“Legislation has been and is still directed toward the protection of wealth, rather than toward the far more important interests of labor on which everything of value to mankind depends.... When money is controlled by a few it gives that few an undue power and control over labor and the resources of the country. Labor will have its best return when the laborer can control its disposal; with an abundance of money, and through co-operation, this end will be practically attained.” (Leland Stanford statement on the Senate floor, Congressional Record, 51 Congress, 1 Sess., 2068-2069, March 3, 1890)

 

“I want this institution to deal particularly with the welfare of the masses. The few very rich can get their education anywhere. They will be welcome to this institution if they come, but the object is more particularly to reach the multitude -- those people who have to consider the expenditure of every dollar.” (Leland Stanford’s last letter to President Jordan shortly before Stanford’s death)

 

Guiding Principles – Stanford President Jon Levin and Provost Jenny Martinez

 

Excerpt:

. . . .

“. . . A defining strength of the university is to bring together students and faculty with different ideas, backgrounds, and aspirations, to create a community of scholars who enhance each other’s learning. Stanford functions best when we have compassion for the needs of others. We are sponsoring town halls to address uncertainty about science funding, providing resources and information for our international students, and addressing many other timely issues. When we work together, there is so much to celebrate....

 

“Finally, we are advocating, in public and private settings, for the value of universities -- for open minds, for discovery, for learning. The creativity, dynamism, and leadership of this country depend on the strength of American universities. Our excellence derives from the investment of public as well as private resources. We are at a time when opportunities for discovery and global competition make that commitment vital. So it is essential that we address criticisms with reflection and humility, and restore public trust.

 

“The success of universities also rests on the American ideal of the open exploration of ideas, a culture of freedom, and horizons of opportunity for all. At its best, Stanford epitomizes that spirit and we are committed to sustaining the campus as a place where, in the words of our motto, the wind of freedom blows.”

 

Full text at Stanford Report and as also posted at our Stanford Speaks webpage.

 

The True Test of Free Speech – former Stanford President John Hennessy

 

Excerpt:

 

“The word university derives from a Latin term that essentially means 'combined into one.' This centuries-old notion that many disciplines come together to form a whole is still at the center of how we understand the mission and life of Stanford and other great universities.

 

“I believe that this combining within the university goes beyond a mixing of disciplines. A university is also a mingling of scholars, experts and novices, from different backgrounds and with different values.

 

“It is a blending of scholarly approaches, experimental and theoretical. A university often hosts a rainbow of viewpoints on the most topical issues of the day.

 

“One goal of this amalgamation is to encourage all members of the community to think creatively and rigorously and to use the interplay of scholarly commentary to sharpen their insights. The exchange of contending and supporting ideas generated by insightful and engaged minds makes the position of university president one of the most interesting jobs in the world.

 

“The combination of intelligent, creative people and contentious issues can also be a volatile mix in any community, and perhaps especially so in a tightly knit intellectual community. It is very much in keeping with Jane and Leland Stanford’s original vision of the University that such issues would be part of the academic conversation. But what happens when the debate inspired by these issues is accompanied by passionate beliefs and widely divergent points of view?” ...

 

Full text at Stanford Magazine and as also posted at our Stanford Speaks webpage.

 

Concerning Culture and Cultures – former Stanford President Gerhard Casper

 

Excerpts:

. . . .

 “More and more individuals seem to seek authenticity through some form of social identity and this social identity is, to a large extent, tied up with a notion of social heritage as one's ‘culture.’ I think it is very important to realize that this fairly old-fashioned definition of culture as ‘social heritage’ owes much of its contemporary currency to the undeniable fact that minorities, in the United States and in many other countries, are emerging from experiences of subordination or even submersion.

 

“It is also the case that thinking in terms of ‘cultural wholes,’ in terms of distinct cultural identities, each more or less ‘complete,’ neglects the fact that there are myriad crossroads, bridges, and borderlands, especially in ‘a nation of immigrants’ such as ours.

 

[Followed by discussion of the differences of cultures, acting collectively versus individually, etc.]

 

“I could end here and thus avoid some additional problems. However, let me retain you for a few moments more. If what I just said suggests to you that I see the university as by and large neutral territory where cultures clash, interact, adapt, and change while the institution itself is committed to cultural relativism, with no ideas and values of its own, you would be quite wrong. A university has a culture, an identity of its own. Its identity is tied to its work. Its work, as I said, consists of the search to know. The search to know is carried out by critical analysis, according to standards of evidence that themselves are subject to examination and reexamination. They cannot be set by a political diktat. Thomas Jefferson spoke of freedom as ‘the first born daughter of science.’

 

“What I like to refer to as the ‘republic of learning’ is committed to, I quote the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, ‘the Stoic ideal of the kosmou polites, or 'citizen of the entire world', that is, the ideal of being a person who can argue intelligently about the most important matters with human beings the world over, not being shut out of such debate by narrowness or prejudice....

 

“The ‘republic of learning’ has values that it prizes above all others: freedom (not just academic freedom), nondiscrimination (you will be heard regardless of your sex, race, ethnicity, religion), and equality of opportunity. It is not a mere coincidence that these are also the values, if at times distorted or forgotten, of our country.” ...

 

Full text at Gerhard Casper website and as also posted at our Stanford Speaks webpage.

 

On the Role of a University Administrator – former Stanford VP for Administration Kenneth Cuthbertson

 

“I resist the idea that learning and teaching should be ‘administered’ in a university. Servants like me and the janitor can get our kicks out of providing the means and services which allow faculty and students to learn and teach under optimal circumstances.” (Obituary for Kenneth Cuthbertson, 1919 - 2000, at Stanford Report)

 

“Our role is like that of a groundskeeper. That is, we make sure the campus playing field is in good condition so that the faculty and students can interact, which is the only reason Stanford exists in the first place, and that boundary lines are drawn around the edges. After that, our job is to stay the hell out of the way.”

 

First Principles – Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier

 

Excerpt:

 

“Emerging from a unique combination of the pre-revolutionary colleges and the Enlightenment tradition that reshaped Europe and found constitutional expression in the American founding, the modern university has stood as a bedrock institution of a free and self-governing republic -- advancing discovery and the pursuit of truth. However, the substantial decline of public trust in some of America’s preeminent institutions over the past few decades has now extended to higher education.

 

“This erosion of trust presents a defining challenge for the country. America’s universities have long stood as forums of pathbreaking research, transformative education, democratic deliberation, free expression, and transmission of our shared political and cultural heritage. They have served as essential engines of discovery, progress, and economic opportunity. Supported by government funding, private philanthropy, student and community investments, and public trust, universities have delivered breakthroughs in every domain. Through their advancement of civic thought, health, technology, economic development, and national security, America’s universities have engendered national prosperity and a highly productive, successful society. The tremendous success of this distinctively American system of research, education, and innovation has inspired respect, admiration, and attempts at imitation across the world.

 

To ensure this enduring success, American universities need to be firmly committed to their core purpose: the cultivation of a free and self-governing republic by the creation, preservation, and dissemination of knowledge through reason, argument, and evidence, rooted in the pursuit of truth and discovery at the frontiers of human knowledge and in a university culture of free inquiry, wide-ranging debate, and academic excellence.” ...

 

Full text at Vanderbilt website and as also posted at our Commentary from Others webpage.

 

Restoring the Academic Social Contract – Stanford Alum and U Texas-Austin Provost William Inboden

 

Excerpt:

 

“Higher education in America sits at a paradox: American universities are simultaneously the crown jewel of the American education system and are also enduring their worst crisis in over a century. The crisis itself has multiple dimensions, including the financial challenges of escalating tuition and student debt burdens, the ideological imbalance among faculty and administrators, the institutional embrace of radical dogmas and speech restrictions, the resurgence of anti-Semitism, the deep ties many universities have forged with foreign nations whose interests are often inimical to the United States, and the new punitive measures that the Trump administration and Congress are wielding....

 

“I do not approach this subject with disinterest. I love the American university. I have spent much of my career in academia. . . Most Americans love their universities, too -- even those who have also lost trust in higher education. Indeed, the controversies buffeting academia are so contentious because the stakes are so high. Americans know intuitively that universities matter a lot to our nation. From this knowledge flows the grief and anger over academia's problems, and the impassioned debates about what should be done. We fight over universities because we care about them....

 

​“Over the past few decades, the combination of zealous progressives being drawn to academic careers and conservatives being discouraged (and sometimes even purged) from academia has cumulatively produced today's severe ideological imbalance of faculties and university administrations.... The only thing more remarkable than that ideological imbalance is how unremarkable most universities have regarded it -- at least if judged by how little most university leaders (including deans, provosts, presidents, and governing boards) have done to address it over that time span.” ...

 

Full text at National Affairs and as also posted at our Commentary from Others webpage.