On Violence and Academic Freedom

President Ian B. Baucom sent the following message to the campus community on September 11, 2025.

Dear Members of the Middlebury Community,

In the message I shared on my first day as president, I committed to working with you to help Middlebury meet our moment. Doing so includes knowing when I should refrain from speaking and when, as president, I have a duty to speak. On those questions, as I shared, I take my broad guidance from the University of Chicago’s Kalven principles. In almost every situation springing from topical or political matters, I will not speak on behalf of Middlebury, so that every member of our community can feel free to do so, unfettered by an official institutional position and without fear of sanction. To repeat the words of the Kalven Report: “The university is the home and sponsor of critics, it is not itself the critic.”

I believe absolutely in that commitment and will uphold it.

As I also shared, the corollary to that principle is too often forgotten. As the report continues: “From time to time, instances will arise in which the society, or segments of it, threaten the very mission of the university and its values of free inquiry. In such a crisis, it becomes the obligation of the university as an institution to oppose such measures and actively to defend its interests and its values.”

Yesterday, tragically, was such a day and such a time, and I feel my obligation to speak.

Most grievously, we witnessed the assassination of a visiting speaker at an American university—Charlie Kirk—likely murdered because of the political opinions he expressed. This was an evil act, it must be condemned, and I condemn it. As an attack on the core values of freedom of expression and academic freedom on which colleges and universities depend, I condemn it further.

Earlier yesterday—at a lower but not insignificant level of concern for the free expression and academic freedom on which the core values and mission of higher education depend—there was also news of political pressure to terminate a faculty member’s employment at one of our national peer institutions due to their classroom discussions on gender and sexuality.

While neither of these happened at Middlebury—and the first, the violent  killing of Charlie Kirk, is, to repeat, at an entirely different level of moral repugnance and outrage—they both reflect a moment in which it is hard to avoid recognizing that society, or segments of it (predominantly from the extremes of the political spectrum, both the left and the right), are threatening our core values of free inquiry, free expression, and academic freedom. Middlebury is no more immune to that moment than any other college or university or any other sector of our society.

In such a time, I feel the obligation to speak, primarily to say that from whatever direction a threat to our academic freedom comes, I will do all I can in my power as president to defend that freedom and our core mission. You have my unwavering commitment. This is a core value, and we will not move away from it.

Over the coming year I will be asking a group of Middlebury faculty, staff, and students to return to this at greater length, to help us resolve how we can best articulate our commitments to teaching, learning, and advancing knowledge in a Middlebury Statement on Academic Freedom. I will soon be convening that group as part of our overall strategic planning process, giving them a charge, and asking them to open their discussions with our full community.

As that work begins, I want to make my starting convictions evident. Our fundamental values are—and must remain—clear.

We are for academic freedom, across all perspectives.

We are for academic freedom, in all its difficulty.

We are for academic freedom mutually—not just mine, but yours, whoever you are and whatever your convictions. I will defend your right to speak, research, and think—and I will ask you to defend mine.

We are for the academic freedom of faculty, staff, and students—particularly recognizing our obligation to the freedom of our students to express and explore thoughts outside orthodoxy, inside and outside the classroom, without fear or hesitation.

We are for the academic freedom of those with whom we agree.

We are for the academic freedom—particularly—of those with whom we disagree.

We will not tolerate violence in our educational community.

We will not allow political pressure to close free inquiry.

We will never seek to close free inquiry, or shut down ideas with which we disagree, in any venue. If we disagree, we’ll listen and then argue our perspective. We believe in letting the best arguments prevail.

Most simply put: Middlebury is—and always will be—for academic freedom. We are for the academic freedom of everyone. We cannot thrive without that commitment, nor can our democracy. Those are simple truths to state. They take all our conviction and hard work to live. In these difficult days, let’s commit to living them together.

Ian

Ian Baucom
President
Professor of English
Middlebury

(Information about our Policy on Open Expression can be found here)