BY HANK REICHMAN

Recently a minor brouhaha has emerged over the “Chicago Principles,” shorthand for the University of Chicago’s 2015 “Report of the Committee on Freedom of Expression.”  The Principles have been endorsed by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and several dozen universities, but dismissed as a “marketing ploy” by others.  Then, last week, University of Pennsylvania professor Sigal Ben-Porath published an essay in which she argued that while the Principles “represent an admirable effort to restate and reinforce colleges and universities’ long-standing commitment to free speech,” at the same time

They rely on a legalistic and formal framework that purports to offer a response to a set of problems that has little use for such blunt tools. They fail to recognize that higher education institutions must address the current tensions brewing under the heading of “free speech” — brought on by students, faculty members and outside forces — by reconsidering, and possibly shifting, a host of practices in classrooms, dorms, clubs and administrations in ways that would differ across campuses. Those tensions cannot simply be resolved by endorsing a one-size-fits-all statement.

Today, Michael Poliakoff, president of the conservative American Council of Trustees and Alumni, fired back, arguing that Ben-Porath had put “the urgent need for uncompromised freedom of expression on a slippery slope.”

In my opinion, however, the biggest problem with the Chicago Principles has been the blatant hypocrisy on free expression exhibited by the administration of the university that produced them.  As conservative Chicago student Malloy Owen caustically concluded, “The left’s attacks on free speech may endanger the academic project, but the greater threat to the free exchange of ideas comes from academic corporatization.  As long as that process continues unchecked, the university’s bold rhetorical defense of an art that it no longer teaches us how to practice will be nothing better than posturing.”

It was in this context that by chance this morning I found myself reading Upton Sinclair’s 1923 account in The Goose-Step of his speaking engagement at the University of Chicago, which he dubs the University of Standard Oil, in honor of its founding funder, John D. Rockefeller.  (I’ve been working through the classic early 20th century critiques of business control of American higher education by Sinclair, Thorstein Veblen, and James McKeen Cattell as part of an as yet ill-defined larger project.)  It seems the university’s hypocrisy is hardly recent.  So sharing Sinclair’s account seems worthwhile.  He begins with a statement that will sound familiar today:

The touchiest problem with all academic authorities is that of “outside speakers.”  They can handle their own professors; by care in selecting instructors, and weeding out the undesirables before they get prestige, they can keep dangerous ideas from creeping into the classroom.  But it always happens there are a half a dozen students who come from Socialist homes, and these get together and call themselves some society with a college name, and start inviting labor agitators and literary self-advertisers, to disturb the dignity and calm of scholarship.  This puts the university administration in a dilemma; they are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.  If they refuse to let the radical propagandist in, there is a howl that they are repressing freedom of thought; on the other hand, if they do let him in, who can figure what millionaire may be led to alter his will.

There is always a little group of disturbers at every large university; and those at Chicago were moved to invite Upton Sinclair to come to their campus and repeat his Wisconsin performance.  I was not present at the consultation between the president of the University of Chicago and his loyal and efficient secretary; but I have been able to imagine the scene.  You understand, there isn’t a particle of prejudice against radicals, and we have absolute freedom of speech at our university, we are willing for the students to hear anyone they wish; but we decide that we had better minimize the trouble by confining this literary self-advertiser to a small hall, so that students will not announce the meeting, and the newspapers won’t hear about it, and the wealthy trustees and donors may not know that it has happened.

Sinclair then describes his arrival at the school and his initial interview with the president, Harry Pratt Judson.

The Bolshevik author enters the presidential sanctum, still with that evil seductive smile.  He explains that he has spoken to an audience of two thousand people at the University of Wisconsin, and fears that a hall seating only two hundred people will not accommodate those who wish to hear him at Chicago.  He understands there is a large auditorium, Mandel Hall, which seats thirteen hundred —

“Ah, yes,” says our president with that urbanity which distinguishes him, “but we are accustomed to reserve Mandel Hall for speakers who are invited by the university.”

“Well,” says the Bolshevik author — could anyone imagine the impudence? — “I should be perfectly willing to be invited by the university.”

“I’m afraid that could hardly be arranged,” says our president, as sweetly as ever.  “Of course, Mr. Sinclair, you understand that we are quite willing for our students to listen to anyone’s ideas; we have absolute freedom of speech at the university, but we have our established traditions regarding the use of our halls, and you could not expect us to make an exception in your case.”

“Well, says the Bolshevik author, “it would seem, President Judson, that your idea of freedom of speech is that the radicals have a small hall and the conservatives a large hall.”

So, Sinclair then arrives at the designated smaller venue where he finds that students “have packed the little hall; the aisles are solid with them; they are hanging from our mullioned windows, and blocking all the corridors outside the many doors.”  Shifting voice, he continues,

The author shoves his way to the platform, and — we tremble with indignation even now as we recall his proceedings — he tells the students about his interview with our august president. and states plainly that he thinks we have discriminated against him because he is a radical.  He asserts, on the authority of several students, that no difficulty has ever before been raised about giving Mandel Hall for speakers invited by students; . . . .  He goes on to say that outside is a beautiful warm spring evening, and a quadrangle with soft green grass, and thick Gothic walls to shelter it from the wind.  If they will go outside and squat, he will come and talk to them, and there will be plenty of room for everyone who wishes to hear his self-laudations.

The students laugh and cheer — what can you expect of young people, who have little sense of dignity, and think this is a lark?  They troop outside, and more come running up from all directions.  Never in the thirty years of our university has there been such a violation of propriety.  For an hour the man delivers a rankly socialistic harangue to fifteen hundred students, and when he tries to stop, they clamor for him to go on, they crowd about and ask him questions, and he is kept talking until eleven o’clock at night, telling our young men and women about strikes and graft — all the most dangerous ideas, which we have been working so hard to keep away from them!

In conclusion, I should add that Sinclair also wrote the following about the University of Chicago: “I have not been able to find a single one of the great American universities which is truly liberal or truly free; but there are degrees of badness among them, and the University of Chicago is one of the best.”  Nearly a century later, I might add, “Well, that’s one way to put it.”