EdSource
University of California faculty will face some new limits on how they can use university websites to share political opinions, such as criticism of Israel, under a policy approved by the system's board of regents. The policy is less restrictive than previous proposed versions after regents made some concessions to faculty.
The policy would prevent faculty departments and other academic units from sharing opinionated statements on the homepages of department websites. Those statements will be permitted elsewhere on the websites, however, so long as they include a disclaimer that the opinions don't represent the entire campus or UC.
The approval of the policy followed months of negotiations with Academic Senate leaders. The latest version specifies that statements related to faculty's "scholarly endeavors" are allowed, a reassuring clarification to Senate leaders. It will also allow for homepages to include links to political statements. Some UC faculty, however, remain unsatisfied with the policy and argue that it infringes on their academic freedom.
"What we're protecting is for the public or for the university community to think that statements being made on individual websites are reflective of the University of California when they're not," said regent Jay Sures, who introduced the policy.
The policy was cleared Wednesday during a joint meeting of the board's academic affairs committee and the compliance and audit committee. The academic affairs committee voted 9-1, with one abstention. The compliance and audit committee voted 6-1, with one abstention.
The full board then voted 13-1 to approve the policy Thursday. The lone regent to vote against it was Josiah Beharry, the student regent on the board. Beharry, who sits on the academic affairs and compliance and audit committees, was also the only vote against the policy in both committees.
Last fall, some faculty departments published opinionated statements on their websites criticizing Israel's war in Gaza, setting off the current debate. The ethnic studies department at UC Santa Cruz, for example, posted a statement calling on "scholars, researchers, organizers, and administrators worldwide" to take action "to end Israel's genocidal attack on Gaza."
The first version of the proposal to limit what faculty can say was brought to the regents in January. A vote on the policy was tabled at the time, and delayed twice more at regents meetings in March and May, before Wednesday's vote.
Some faculty have criticized the regents for taking up the issue at all, saying it is outside their purview and that it infringes on academic freedom.
But in the months since the original version of the policy, regents worked with Academic Senate leaders to refine the proposal. The Senate considers the latest policy "a marked improvement over previous drafts and generally consonant with free expression and academic freedom," said James Steintrager, the 2023-24 chair of the Senate, during remarks prior to Wednesday's vote.
Steintrager called it a "welcome addition" that the latest version clarifies that statements related to scholarly endeavors won't be banned from homepages. Commentary by public health faculty on the importance of vaccines, for example, would be permitted.
Steintrager added that the policy "is not a ban on discretionary or political statements." Instead, he noted, it "imposes certain requirements and guardrails" on those statements, including ensuring that the statements don't impose on faculty who might hold different views.
Another concession to the faculty is that links to political statements will be permitted on the homepages of department websites. Only the statements themselves cannot appear on the homepages.
Despite the changes, some faculty remain concerned that the policy violates their free speech rights. Jennifer Mogannam, an assistant professor in UC Santa Cruz's ethnic studies department, said she views the policy as targeting ethnic studies faculty and pro-Palestinian speech.
Mogannam is one of multiple Palestinian studies scholars in the Santa Cruz department and said statements about Israel's war in Gaza should be considered part of their scholarly endeavors. But she's worried it won't be seen that way.
"I'm sure we're going to be seeing double standards in terms of what's allowed and what's not when this policy is being implemented," Mogannam said.
Ultimately, the implementation and enforcement of the policy will be left to each individual campus, with campus chancellors having the final say. Each academic department that plans to share political statements will be required to "develop and publish procedures" detailing how they plan to comply with the new policy.
UC President Michael Drake credited regents and Senate leaders for their collaboration on the policy, saying it had been "developed and refined in a way that makes it much more easily supportable."
"I think it will have good ramifications and actually will reverberate back to the units and help guide them in the way that they're communicating their positions," he added.
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