Dear colleagues,
When I became president, I pledged to help fortify Michigan State’s position as a leading global public research university committed to tackling grand challenges. Our service to the common good is one reason I’m so proud to be a Spartan, and I’m impressed with how our community is pushing the boundaries of discovery every day, from climate solutions to agricultural innovation to the future of mobility. I also admire how our world-class faculty create spaces for our curious students to engage in dialogue across differences, which is essential to good citizenship. Together, Spartans play a crucial role in strengthening democracy and creating a better tomorrow.
As leaders, we have a responsibility to empower our community of scholars to follow their convictions, pursue truth and add their voices to the public forum. After all, universities should be places of healthy tension, where ideas are freely exchanged to reveal the many ways to live and view the world. That means we must defend academic freedom not as a special privilege but as a foundational responsibility.
As drafters of the University of Chicago’s influential Kalven Report recognized in 1967, universities can best advance academic freedom by serving as forums for debates, not proponents within them. Using the institution’s voice for any but the most critical purposes risks undermining academic freedom, chilling free expression and silencing alternative views. If issued too often, institutional statements also could add to community distress, numb the community to leaders’ voices, appear performative and/or exacerbate the situation.
Making room for Spartans’ diverse voices and perspectives calls on university leaders to exercise thoughtful restraint regarding statements on local, state, national and international incidents and current events. To that end, and after consulting with deans and other leaders, the university, its colleges and its departments should refrain from issuing institutional statements unless incidents or current events threaten MSU’s core missions or directly impact the MSU community.
Please know that institutional restraint does not mean our expert faculty should sideline themselves in any public conversation. On the contrary, scholarly voices are needed now as much as ever to elevate public discourse. Moreover, our university community has and will continue to address issues of public concern by doing what we do best: teaching about them, researching and communicating about them and modeling civil discourse so diverse viewpoints can be shared and better understood.
Finally, the university will continue to uphold the dignity and worth of all people by living our values of collaboration, equity, excellence, integrity and respect. When our students need support, we will continue to offer resources. When incidents arise, we can meet with impacted Spartans to ensure they are seen and heard. And when our community hosts events such as vigils, teach-ins and academic panels, we can attend to uphold the value of diverse perspectives and foster belonging.
In short, exercising institutional restraint does not mean withholding support for our community or our core values. It means creating an inclusive environment grounded in our mission of advancing knowledge and transforming lives, while prioritizing thoughtful outreach and action to demonstrate care and compassion.
We have created a web page on institutional restraint that summarizes the university’s position and includes FAQs. Please feel free to share this page as needed to help set community expectations.
Thank you again for everything you have done and will continue to do to advance Michigan State as a passionately public university. We are one team, and I look forward to our continued partnership as we deliver on the promise of our great university.
Kevin M. Guskiewicz, Ph.D.
(pronounced GUS-ka-wits)
President
Professor, Department of Kinesiology
