Johns Hopkins University leaders shared a message with faculty today detailing how the university's constrained approach to public statements made on behalf of the institution applies to JHU's departments, centers, and institutes.
Following deliberations by faculty leaders and deans, JHU President Ron Daniels and Provost Ray Jayawardhana announced that academic departments will be governed by the same "posture of restraint" that the university committed to in August 2024—that is, that official statements in response to global, national, or local events should be made "only in the limited circumstances where an issue is clearly related to a direct, concrete, and demonstrable interest or function" of the university or department.
The posture of restraint will take the form of guidance in the case of JHU's centers and institutes, they added.
"A posture of restraint for units of the university leaves untouched the freedom of individual faculty or students, acting either on their own or assembling voluntarily, to comment on matters of interest or controversy," Daniels and Jayawardhana wrote. "Indeed, one of the core rationales for such a posture is to afford faculty and students the greatest freedom to develop their own perspectives without fear of running counter to an institutional stance—a core tenet underlying our university's truth-seeking function."
JHU has traditionally taken a constrained approach to issuing official statements, but university leaders have been called on with increasing frequency in recent years to make statements addressing a broad range of issues and topics. In August 2024, Daniels, Jayawardhana, and the deans shared the decision to adopt a posture of restraint for their public statements made on behalf of the institution in response to global, national, or local events.
In communicating that decision, they explained how the practice of issuing statements can be at odds with the university's function as a place for open discourse and the free exchange of ideas. It can also create a perception that there are approved, broadly held institutional views on political or social issues, views that don't always align with those held by some members of the Hopkins community.
In considering how this approach applies to departments, centers, and institutes while also preserving the foundational academic freedom of individual faculty members and students, university leaders sought feedback from the Johns Hopkins University Council, or JHUC, a representative body that includes 18 faculty members representing JHU's 10 academic divisions as well as the deans of each school and members of university administration. A council ad hoc committee, following consultation with the faculty senates or equivalent body from each school, advised that a posture of institutional restraint is appropriate for academic units of the university. But there was a diversity of views on the committee as to how this principle might be implemented in practice.
The ad hoc committee's recommendations were then discussed among the full membership of JHUC, where a substantial consensus emerged for the position that academic departments or departmental leaders speaking on behalf of their departments should be governed by the same framework as that used by university and divisional leaders.
Daniels and Jayawardhana endorsed this view.
"Departments are organized around scholarly disciplines that are based on defined norms and methodologies, not on the basis of shared commitments to a particular belief on matters of interest or controversy," they wrote. "A faculty member whose appointment resides in a department should not feel that their teaching or research activities are in any way shaped or restricted by departmental or divisional statements in response to external matters or regarding issues of public controversy or debate. A departmental or divisional statement risks chilling the individual research or education activities that might be construed as contradicting the statement, thus causing tension with ideas of academic freedom."
Departmental leaders are free to write or speak about external matters in their personal or scholarly capacities, Daniels and Jayawardhana added, but must "make clear they are speaking in their individual capacity and not on behalf of their department."
They further explained that "given that a faculty member is not bound to continue affiliation with a center or institute in the same way that they are with a department—and, in fact, faculty may opt to associate with a center or institute precisely because of their stance on a policy or scientific matter," the posture of restraint for centers and institutes will take the form of guidance rather than policy. Centers and institutes are encouraged to:
- Issue only statements that are informed by the academic expertise of the unit and are about topics within the specific mission, interests, or functions of the unit;
- Refrain from issuing statements of sympathy or condemnation;
- When issuing a statement, include a disclaimer that makes clear the unit is speaking on its own behalf and only on its own behalf;
- Adopt procedures to protect dissenting views in the unit.
"We want to thank JHUC, and in particular the members of the ad hoc committee, for the care and consideration that they brought to these questions," Daniels and Jayawardhana wrote. "Their efforts are a testament to the virtues of collaboration and deliberation that are embodied in JHUC—and indeed, that define the extraordinary work of our university."
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