If you liked ex-president-of-Harvard Claudine Gay, you should love Harvard dean Lawrence Bobo
Bobo's recent opinion piece in the Harvard Crimson reflects poorly on him, and on the university he represents
Lawrence Bobo is Harvard Dean of Social Science. He was appointed to the position by ex-president Claudine Gay in 2018, when she was Dean of Arts and Sciences. Since then, he has worked tirelessly to help further what had been her agenda of transforming Harvard from one of the world’s top research and teaching institutions into just another social justice organization (a phenomenon that is not uncommon these days, to wit the similar and similarly sad transformation and decline of the ACLU and the publication Scientific American).
Recently, Bobo wrote an op-ed for the Harvard Crimson titled “Faculty Speech Must Have Limits”, arguing that:
“A faculty member’s right to free speech does not amount to a blank check to engage in behaviors that plainly incite external actors — be it the media, alumni, donors, federal agencies, or the government — to intervene in Harvard’s affairs.”
The op-ed has been widely criticized (to the point of being ridiculed), with most commentaries on the article focusing on issues of freedom of speech and academic freedom. Links to some of those commentaries are below.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/6/19/CAFH-punish-faculty-speech/
https://www.persuasion.community/p/don’t-sanction-professors-for-speaking
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/free-speech-harvard-faculty/678740/
https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-harvard-deans-frontal-on-faculty-speech
I want to focus on a feature of the op-ed that most commentaries have addressed only obliquely: Bobo’s arguments in his op-ed are just plain stupid.
According to Bobo, faculty have the right to criticize the Harvard administration, or any other aspect of the university – but only so long as the criticism doesn’t come to the attention of “the media, alumni, federal agencies, or the government” in such a way that those “external actors” take actions that he and others at Harvard don’t like. At one point in the op-ed, Bobo makes direct reference to criticism of the university done with “ the intent to arouse external intervention into University business”.
Among the many problems with Bobo’s argument is that intent is notoriously difficult to determine. How would you know whether or not an op-ed in the Harvard Crimson that comes to the attention of members of congress was written with the INTENT to “arouse external intervention” by members of congress? What about something that a faculty member has tweeted? Or mentioned to a friend? Or written in a blog posting?
And does Bobo really think that faculty members can be, and should be, held accountable for the way in which others use their words? Is Elise Stefanik so fully controlled by Steven Pinker that HE should be sanctioned if Stefanik asks a question during a congressional hearing that is related to something he has written? That’s ridiculous.
Did Bobo give any thought at all to cases in which a faculty member is criticizing the university for actions the faculty member thinks are, or may be, illegal? Does that faculty member have to remain quiet to avoid the possibility that an “external actor” may learn of the illegal activity and then intervene in the operation of the university in some way? What about a faculty member who uncovers evidence of unethical behavior on the part of an administrator? Claudine Gay was forced to resign, in part, because her scholarship included repeated and egregious violations of Harvard’s own ethical standards related to plagiarism. The members of the Harvard corporation (equivalent to a board of trustees) was aware of those issues, but had chosen to do nothing until some “external actors” learned of the violations. One presumes that, according to Bobo, it would have been unethical for a faculty member at Harvard to have mentioned Gay’s ethical violations in any kind of public forum.
How does Bobo think an investigation of a faculty member would operate to determine the intent behind the faculty member’s communication? Would the standard be that if an “external actor” learns of the faculty member’s criticisms of the university, then that would be prima facie evidence of the faculty member’s intent? That makes no sense. And even worse is if intent doesn’t even matter – if it would simply be the case that if an external actor uses a faculty member’s words against the university in some way, then the faculty member can be held responsible for violating Harvard’s speech policies. If that’s the case, then one could have the bizarre situation in which faculty member “A” posts a criticism of the university online but no one of any power or influence reads it — in which case, that would be OK — but if faculty member B posts the same criticism, but by chance B’s criticism comes to the attention of an influential donor who then decides to donate less to the university, then B could be charged with violating Harvard’s speech policies.
Let’s call all of this for what it really is: stupid. Bobo even manages to grossly misrepresent the classic “falsely yelling “Fire” in a theatre” supreme court argument – by leaving out the “falsely” part (and ignoring subsequent supreme court decisions). And even more to the point, the analogy is not remotely apt, which makes it sort of weird that Bobo chose to mention it. I mean — surely no one — not even a Harvard dean whose mind has been marinating in a stew of postmodern and critical studies rhetoric in the place of logical reasoning — could possible argue that there is no first amendment right to yell “fire” in a theater that really is on fire. And yet, included in the speech that Bobo would like to ban, is speech that states propositions that are demonstrably true.
And then Bobo even goes so far as to equate a faculty member publicly questioning a university policy with a faculty member encouraging students to participate in a protest that violates university policy, claiming that both should not be permissible. Reasonable people may differ regarding the exact line where “encouraging students to participate in a protest” crosses from protected free speech to a sanctionable violation of a reasonable university policy (e.g., “encouraging” vs giving extra credit vs requiring). However, simply using the phrase “Following similar logic” (which Bobo does as a means of equating the two situations) does not make the situations at all comparable. Bobo doesn’t really explain how the two situations are similar — probably because they’re not.
There is simply no way that a policy remotely like the one proposed by Bobo could pass freedom of speech or academic freedom muster, and even if it could, there is no way the policy could be implemented in a fair and coherent manner — which raises (not begs) the obvious question: Given how stupid the arguments are, why did Bobo write the op-ed? I’m going to offer three possible hypotheses, any combination of which may explain why he wrote the column.
1. He feels an overwhelming need to do “something” to try to avenge what he sees as the unfair harm done to Claudine Gay by “external actors” – and this was the best he could come up with.
2. He knows that his arguments are stupid, but that’s partly the point. In the column he actually calls out some particularly high profile Harvard faculty by name (Steven Pinker, Jill Lepore, Henry Gates Jr., Raj Chetty) or by identifiable action (Larry Summers). Surely he knows that nothing he says or does can really keep these faculty from speaking their minds (in part because they know that the policy he proposes can’t be enforced). However, the real purpose of his op-ed may be to send a chill through the larger Harvard faculty community – to send the message that if they criticize him or the policies he supports, he will come after them. He may not be able to successfully charge and sanction them for violating a Harvard speech policy, but he might be able to do other things that make life for them less pleasant.
3. He’s actually not very smart, has little inclination to think deeply about issues, and doesn’t realize how stupid his arguments are.
My suspicion is that the best explanation is a combination of all three hypotheses above (he wants to prove to Claudine Gay and her supporters that he’s still on their side AND he wants to send a chill through the Harvard community AND he’s not the sharpest of Harvard’s faculty). But in any case, the bottom line is that Harvard should be embarrassed that one of their deans would publish something so godawful dumb.
Check the meaning of “bobo” in Spanish.