As Ivy presidents falter under pressure, LSU’s president has different approach to campus speech

18th December 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Piper Hutchinson
Contributing Writer

(lailluminator.com) — While presidents of Ivy League universities are in the spotlight for their comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, LSU President William Tate has a different philosophy: Stay mum.

Tate told a gathering of faculty earlier this month that he is resisting calls to comment “about various geopolitical activities over the last month” because doing so may chill faculty or staff speech.

“I believe [faculty] and the students should be free to make any statement you want to about any matter and we should defend your right to do that,” he told faculty. “I don’t believe that the president should be making statements that squashes your ability to have free speech.”

Tate’s counterparts at Harvard, University of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were condemned by Congress for their comments during a hearing on campus antisemitism. The presidents gave largely legalistic answers to a harsh line of questioning by U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-New York, declining to definitively answer whether calls for genocide violates student codes of conduct.

Penn President Liz Magill was ousted following her comments, but Harvard is expected to retain Claudine Gay, despite a congressional resolution calling for her and MIT President Sally Kornbluth to be fired.

Conflict over the issue has taken root in campuses across the country, including in Louisiana.

Tulane University in New Orleans is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for a possible civil rights violation after students were injured at a pro-Palestine rally, the Tulane Hullabaloo reported. The university’s student population is 44 percent Jewish, one of the highest for a non-Jewish university, but New Orleans and surrounding areas have sizable Palestinian populations as well.

Tulane President Michael Fitts has issued a series of statements about the conflict abroad and on campus.

But at public universities like LSU, leaders are taking a different approach.

LSU students have also protested on campus in support of a ceasefire, The Reveille reported, but it remained peaceful and did not prompt Tate to comment.

“I’ve watched some of my colleagues write one statement, then a second statement, and then a third statement, and then a fourth statement,” Tate told faculty. “And I don’t believe that you should be writing statements every time a philanthropy or benefactor might say I’m going to withdraw money.”

“We’re not supposed to be running universities like that,” Tate added.

Instead, Tate said presidents should focus on defending students’ right to free speech.

“We got to make sure we’re clear about free speech at LSU,” Tate said. “Because we have a long history of people critiquing us about whether this is a place for free speech.”

This article originally published in the December 18, 2023 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.