Provost Martinez and I wrote last week to articulate a set of principles that we are using to guide us in the current and complex time.
A commitment to the university’s fundamental mission of research and education, and the pursuit of excellence in that mission in our decisions and policies.
A belief that academic freedom and open inquiry are essential to fulfilling our mission. We intend to defend the right of faculty and students to research and discuss issues they care about, free from internal and external coercion.
A recognition that universities distinctively bring together faculty and students with different viewpoints and backgrounds, from every corner of the U.S. and around the world, and function best when we demonstrate open minds and compassion for the needs of others.
We also wrote that it was important at this time, for those of us who love universities and seek to support them, to listen to criticisms and address those that are legitimate, and to speak to the value that universities create: in producing knowledge, in fostering innovation, and in educating students who will make meaningful contributions.
I would like to expand on that by making a few points.
First, the partnership between universities and the federal government is exceptionally important – to universities and the country. There is perhaps no university which demonstrates that more than Stanford. When the government began its investment in scientific research, we were a good regional university. Federal funding enabled us to become a great national and global university. In turn, we demonstrate how university research can be an engine of innovation for the country and the world. Studies of federally funded research find that it has exceptionally high social return – 2, 3, or 5 times the investment – and many of the specific examples can be traced to this campus.
Second, academic freedom is an essential part of the contract. It protects members of the university to question orthodoxy, to debate ideas, to pursue lines of thought that go against the prevailing political winds. It requires protection from both internal and external coercion. On the external side, First Amendment protections for free speech, including unpopular ideas, are a fundamental part of this country. It is also important for universities to recognize that we have not always lived up to our internal end – we have had speakers shouted down, published lists of harmful words, and had situations where the careers of students or faculty were threatened for politically unpopular speech. Today, I believe we can be proud of what we are doing at Stanford to protect free inquiry and model civil discourse. Provost Martinez and I made it our first priority this year. We welcomed the incoming class with that message; we published, and have been enforcing, clear rules protecting speech and the rights of others to study and learn. The COLLEGE curriculum is thriving, as is the Stanford Civics program. We started the ePluribus initiative, which includes faculty-led discussions in residences. That is the right way for universities to address concerns, rather than under the threat of losing federal funding.
This is an exceptionally important moment for the United States to build upon the value created by its universities, not to lose the edge that those universities bring. We stand on the precipice of breakthroughs in cancer research, neuroscience, robotics, and other fields, in many cases powered by advances in data and machine learning. The threat of removing funding from universities that house many of the world’s great researchers has the potential to gravely damage the country’s competitive standing, and long-term prospects for innovation and growth. So too would curtailing a fundamental strength of American universities to attract the best and brightest students from around the world who go on to contribute so much to this country – in the case of Stanford graduates, to found major companies such as NVIDIA, Google, Yahoo!, Doordash, and Zoom.
This time is a test of our ability to work together, and with other universities and the country, to chart a course to continued excellence guided by clear and enduring principles. We are doing that and will continue to do that.
I appreciate the work of everyone in this room who I know love this institution, and believe in the ideal of American higher education.
