Professor Soucek Writes Wall Street Journal Piece Tied to New Book

Professor Brian Soucek wrote a Jan. 2 essay for the Wall Street Journal headlined “Why Universities Can’t Be Neutral.”

Soucek writes that over the past few years, many universities – an estimated 150, by one count – have agreed to embrace a standard of institutional “neutrality.” 

But “there is just one problem: The neutrality so many are touting and pledging is largely an illusion,” Soucek noted.

Later in the essay, Soucek states that “the real question universities need to be asking … isn’t whether some statement, policy or investment strategy counts as 'political,' especially in a world where nearly every aspect of higher education has become politicized. Instead, I would replace all of the recent committee reports and neutrality pledges with something like this: ‘The university or its departments should make official statements only when doing so advances their mission.’”

Soucek’s new book The Opinionated University: Academic Freedom, Diversity, and the Myth of Neutrality in American Higher Education will be published by the University of Chicago Press on Monday, Jan. 12. At noon on that day, Soucek will discuss the book in a special King Hall event.

Professor Soucek’s primary teaching and research interests are antidiscrimination law, civil procedure, constitutional law, and refugee/asylum law. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. He has clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Mark R. Kravitz in Connecticut, and Judge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.