This editorial is the first of a two-part series on faculty involvement in political advocacy.

Whether desirable or not, politics can play a large role in the University setting. Inside the classroom, professors often make their ideological leanings quite clear, whether through political jokes or relatively one-sided curricula. And outside the classroom, many professors write politicized pieces for media outlets and/or ally themselves with partisan campus movements. These two environments for political activism are distinct, and actions acceptable in one setting may not be acceptable in another. In this first editorial, we will advance our notion of how professors at Stanford should act in regards to social and political activism outside the classroom.

Faculty members, in this external setting, are free citizens and thus granted First Amendment protection. But although they can participate in political advocacy, should they? On one side are those who are critical of any faculty participation in social or political initiatives. Many view a faculty member’s job as something to be restricted to lecture halls, journal pages or office hours. The faculty member’s role is not to add her voice, experience or insight into the incendiary pot of campus political battles. Critics of faculty engagement also argue that students may become more apprehensive about expressing views that go against the public proclamations of a respected faculty member. By this logic, the professor’s actions in the public sphere have consequences on the classroom environment. These critics argue that as a result, faculty members should retreat from the proverbial public sphere and focus on research and teaching rather than advocacy or engagement with social and political issues.

This Board argues that this view is unfair to faculty. Stanford is a self-defined community of scholars and students who each possess an equal right to personally contribute to political and social debates. In particular, educational policymakers justify the existence of tenure because of the protection it affords to faculty members to voice controversial viewpoints, both inside and outside the classroom. To argue for the restriction of these viewpoints to the pages of a journal or confines of a lecture hall both undermines the purpose of tenured academic positions and forces the faculty member to undergo an unfair schism between their privately-held political and social values and what they are allowed to publicly express. Though some faculty members, for personal or professional reasons, may choose to undergo such a schism, it is unfair to expect each and every faculty member to do so.

In addition to being unfair, it is also undesirable to restrict social and political activism by faculty members on campus. In many cases, Stanford faculty members add valuable opinions and experience. For example, a professor’s student involvement in Vietnam War activism, or military experience in the Gulf War, may inform his or her present position on escalating tension in Iran or withdrawal from Afghanistan. Although some students may be afraid to engage with a faculty member who expresses an opposing perspective, others openly embrace the challenge. If professors who make public their political views welcome and respect dissent in the classroom, students would only hurt themselves by suppressing their views; intellectual challenge, especially with highly educated faculty, can serve to strengthen or add necessary nuance to one’s own beliefs.

To argue that faculty members should not add their voices to on-campus debates over these issues risks cutting off a valuable source of insight and plurality. Of course, we expect faculty members to remain respectful to opposing viewpoints regardless of their own leanings. This is especially important for liberal professors, who may not always be as cognizant of the ramifications of their actions due to our left-leaning student body. We believe that allowing and even encouraging faculty involvement in social and political campus debates does not lead to inhospitable classroom environments but instead helps foster lively, pluralistic dialogues on various issues marked by a wide array of campus contributors.