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ā€˜Not quite. Try again.ā€™ Boston University training on discrimination and harassment brooks no dissent from university-approved views

Boston University sign and crowd of students walking

FIRE has written yet another letter to Boston University, this time objecting to mandatory trainings that compel speech from faculty. (Jorge Salcedo / Shutterstock.com)

Speech is not free when it is compulsory. This basic principle appears to be lost on Boston University.

FIRE has twice written to BU, objecting to antiracism initiatives that compel speech from theatre faculty and interfere with their pedagogical autonomy. These initiatives include mandatory diversity statements on syllabi and a requirement that faculty teach material ā€œthrough an actively antiracist lens.ā€ Disappointingly, BU has ignored our letters. 

While waiting for a response, we discovered yet another way in which BU is violating its facultyā€™s right to be free from compelled speech. As by the Washington Free Beacon, BUā€™s mandatory training on preventing harassment and discrimination requires faculty members to express views which they may not hold.

FIRE sent another letter to BU today, calling on the university to either make the training optional or offer a different training that does not infringe on faculty membersā€™ rights to free expression .

Earlier this year, FIREaddressed a similar situation at the University of Oklahoma, which uses a diversity training module provided by , the same education vendor that developed BUā€™s training. As my colleague Sabrina Conza wrote, universities have some leeway to require students or faculty to participate in training sessions without implicating their expressive rights. A training may simply communicate the universityā€™s views, for example, or test students or faculty on their understanding of institutional policies.

But BUā€™s training, like OUā€™s, goes further by compelling faculty to express specific viewpoints that may conflict with their personal beliefs.

FIRE calls on BU to immediately eliminate any requirement that faculty members express agreement with university-sanctioned viewpoints.

While BU the training as covering the topic of preventing sexual misconduct, much of the training is unrelated to that topic. EVERFIā€™s lists, among the trainingā€™s learning objectives, ā€œcreating a culture that promotes respect and professionalism with bystander intervention strategies and active allyship at the core.ā€ And the training, in part, pursues that objective by asking participants opinion-based questions about these concepts and leaving them no choice but to select the response designated by the university as correct.

For example, one question presents the following hypothetical scenario:

You overhear Adea talking to Lucy, who has recently announced sheā€™s pregnant. Adea knows that Lucy is married to a woman, Zaineb. ā€œWait . . .ā€ Adea says. ā€œSo how did you get pregnant then? Was it like a friend or a donor or something? Do you do IVF?ā€

The module then asks the user what they ā€œshouldā€ do and gives two options:

  • Wait for Lucy to respond. You were kind of wondering, too!
  • Intervene. Those questions are a little invasive!

If the user selects ā€œWait for Lucy to respond,ā€ a message with the heading ā€œNot Quiteā€ appears, and says: ā€œItā€™s inappropriate for Adea to ask a colleague invasive medical questions. Try again.ā€ The user can continue with the module only after choosing the ā€œInterveneā€ option. So not only are faculty members required to agree that Adeaā€™s speech is inappropriate, they must further agree that they should interrupt the conversation to interject their opinion. 

This is one of several questions that involves subjective beliefs or ethical judgments ā€” as opposed to official BU policies or relevant law ā€” and requires the participant to choose a specific response, even if it doesnā€™t reflect the participantā€™s actual beliefs.

But BUā€™s promises of free expression and academic freedom preclude mandatory affirmation of university-approved viewpoints. Recognizing that free speech is ā€œcentralā€ to its mission, BUā€™s proclaims the university has a ā€œresponsibility to allow and safeguard the airing of the full spectrum of opinions on its campuses and to create an environment where ideas can be freely expressed and challenged.ā€ BUā€™s likewise protects academic freedom as ā€œessential in institutions of higher education if they are to make their proper contribution to the common good.ā€

Freedom of expression also entails the right not to speak. The U.S. Supreme Court elucidated this principle over 70 years ago in the landmark case of West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, overturning a regulation that required schoolchildren to salute the flag. The court took issue not with the teaching of patriotism or national traditions, but rather with a rule that would compel a student ā€œto declare a beliefā€ and ā€œto utter what is not in his mind.ā€ A rule like that ā€œwould strangle the free mind at its source.ā€

While Barnette and other First Amendment cases are not binding on BU as a private institution, they provide a baseline for what a faculty member would reasonably expect from a university that, like BU, promises freedom of expression. A university that promises to ā€œallow and safeguard the airing of the full spectrum of opinionsā€ is the last place where dissent should be stamped out.

BU must make either the training or its questions optional, or offer a training that permits faculty members to continue after selecting answers that best match their views, even if they differ from those held by the university.

FIRE calls on BU to immediately eliminate any requirement that faculty members express agreement with university-sanctioned viewpoints. 

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