Do calls to adopt a policy of “institutional neutrality” nudge university leaders towards positions favoured by the political Right?
Do they discourage institutional interventions on “progressive” causes, and effectively censor teaching and research on subjects where neutrality is least likely to be experienced as such—especially by academics who, to paraphrase Marx and Engels, feel that the point is not simply to interpret the world, but to change it?
Or is that diagnosis aimed at the wrong target altogether, confusing a self-binding restraint on the university’s corporate voice with a campus-wide coercive compliance regime, created by funding leverage and executive direction, and that now all too often travels under the same “neutrality” label?
These questions are prompted by a recent spate of interventions that lean towards the first insinuation, including a report from PEN America, and more recently a Times Higher Education piece written in the shadow of what its author—University of Warwick academic freedom chair Gavin Schwartz-Leeper—calls the Trump administration’s “authoritarian” use of state power against US universities. In Schwartz-Leeper's account, attacks on DEI have been backed by well-funded conservative networks and advanced—“cynically”, as he puts it—under the banner of combating antisemitism, with the Heritage Foundation’s “Project Esther” serving as the emblematic case. The worry, as Schwartz-Leeper frames it, is not simply pressure to address anti-Jewish discrimination, but the mobilization of “antisemitism” on campus as a category capacious enough to render anti-Zionist activism—and even sharp criticism of Israel —presumptively suspect, and in turn to supply a ready-made rationale for further challenges to DEI and other progressive initiatives.
In Gavin Schwarz-Leeper’s account, attacks on DEI have been backed by well-funded conservative networks and advanced—“cynically”, as he puts it—under the banner of combating antisemitism.
The essay then turns to the UK, where Reform UK “appears poised to replace the Conservative Party as the most popular right-leaning party”, and where Schwartz-Leeper argues comparable tactics are emerging. His central example is precisely the call for universities to adopt policies of “institutional neutrality”, which he claims can stifle rather than protect academic freedom, while “imped[ing] the wider social role that universities play”.
In the article, the phrase “institutional neutrality” hyperlinks to a joint open letter making the case for such policies, addressed to all UK vice-chancellors and co-signed by a number of campaign groups, including the Committee for Academic Freedom (for whom I work). From there, Schwart-Leeper advances the claim that gives the essay its edge: that this ostensibly non-partisan stance can function as a political ratchet, such that “senior politicians and university leaders can be pushed into adopting positions favoured by the right without necessarily making open acknowledgement of that”.
Schwartz-Leeper never names his referent, but what he appears to have in mind is President Trump’s Compact for Academic Excellence, which ties access to federal grants and partnerships to compliance with his administration’s priorities, freezing research funds and threatening to exclude universities from federal programs over EDI policies. Initially sent to nine universities, including Brown, MIT and the University of Virginia, the Compact was later opened up to all US colleges and universities. Universities are told they are not obliged to sign, but the text makes clear that those declining may have to forego unspecified “federal benefits”, and that signatories found in breach could be required to repay money received during the year of any violation.
There is, therefore, every reason to be concerned about what is unfolding in parts of the US, particularly in public higher education, where funding leverage, compliance signalling, and curricular oversight are generating a chilling effect long before any formal sanction is imposed. Schwartz-Leeper is also right to fear Reform’s predilection for these ideas: in its manifesto-style “contract” at the last election, for instance, the party pledged to “cut funding to universities that undermine free speech”. But we need to be clear about what is, and is not, an institutional neutrality statement.
