$100 million gift will advance UChicago’s commitment to free expression

“Since its founding, the University of Chicago has had an unwavering commitment to free expression, standing out as a beacon among other great universities,” said David Rubenstein, JD’73, chair of the University of Chicago Board of Trustees. “This commitment will make it possible for students and scholars as well as leaders in society to experience UChicago’s distinctive approach.”

The initiative comes at a pivotal time of opportunities and threats to free expression at U.S. universities and internationally. Even as many scholars and speakers have faced censorship for their views, a growing number of universities in the last decade have committed to upholding the Chicago Principles of free expression. The new gift will allow for a rapid expansion of the Chicago Forum’s work through thought-provoking events and powerful new initiatives, including the expansion of free expression education to leaders beyond academia and a unique fellowship program for visiting scholars who are working to advance free inquiry and expression around the world.

“Like many other societies, the United States is grappling with issues related to free expression, including misinformation, a polarized media environment, and a rising censoriousness,” said Tom Ginsburg, the Leo Spitz Distinguished Service Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago Law School and inaugural faculty director of the Chicago Forum. “We want the Chicago Forum to build on the University’s traditions as the place for cutting‑edge thinking to address today’s challenges. We also want every student to have the experience of speaking their mind and the possibility of changing it in conversation with others. This transformative gift will allow us to build upon what we’ve started and have a much larger impact.”

The Chicago Forum had an ambitious first year. It hosted more than a dozen events—often on difficult subjects—from the war in Israel and Gaza to the impact of landmark Supreme Court cases. It extended its reach through its Academic Freedom Institute, in which leaders from more than 20 colleges and universities attended workshops on implementing academic freedom programs at their institutions. The Chicago Forum also launched an orientation program to introduce new members of the UChicago community to free expression, while providing funding to support a wide range of faculty and student research projects.

“We have been impressed with the way faculty and students courageously and boldly engage with these issues in nearly every corner of the University,” said Tony Banout, PhD’12, the executive director of the Chicago Forum. “This year, as we increase our efforts in partnership with the College, divisions, and professional schools, we will introduce every incoming student to the University’s longstanding tradition of free inquiry and expression.”

A legacy of leadership

The principles of free expression and academic freedom have been fundamental to the University of Chicago’s missions of education and discovery since its founding in 1890. “There is not an institution of learning in the country in which freedom of teaching is more absolutely untrammeled than in the University of Chicago,” said William Rainey Harper, UChicago’s first president.

In the 130 years since, the University’s leaders, faculty and students have stood up for these principles, despite challenges across generations—ranging from allegations of Communism in the 1930s through the McCarthy era to protests over controversial figures visiting campus in the 1960s.

During the Vietnam War, protestors demanded universities declare a particular stance on social or political issues or divest from specific financial interests. It was then that the University articulated its role in political and social action through a 1967 report now known as the Kalven Report, named for its chief author, renowned UChicago legal scholar Harry Kalven Jr., which stressed institutional neutrality.

“To perform its mission in the society,” the report states, “a university must sustain an extraordinary environment of freedom of inquiry and maintain an independence from political fashions, passions, and pressures. … A university, if it is to be true to its faith in intellectual inquiry, must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.”

The University reaffirmed this position in 2015 through its Chicago Principles, created in response to an increase in attempts to suppress free speech both at UChicago and on campuses across the country. A committee led by Geoffrey Stone, the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law at UChicago, drafted a statement outlining the importance of free expression and academic freedom to the University, concluding that “debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.” To date, more than 100 colleges and universities have adopted the Chicago Principles or similar statements.

When Alivisatos, AB’81, returned to his alma mater as UChicago president in 2021, he spoke of his personal commitment to “continuing to strengthen” free expression at UChicago in his inaugural address.

The future of free expression at UChicago

In looking to the future, this historic gift will help the University advance its ambitious goals for the Chicago Forum.

The Chicago Forum will expand its work on orientation programming for UChicago students, faculty and staff, and it will support faculty and student research on issues related to free expression in universities, in other sectors of contemporary societies and throughout history. It will extend its reach beyond the campus by working with other universities, and it will experiment on work related to free expression in other sectors, such as secondary education, museums and some corporate environments.

Along these lines, the Chicago Forum will launch a free expression fellowship program across campus. Fellowships would provide the opportunity for junior scholars to pursue an idea related to free inquiry and expression. More established figures, including leading public thinkers, would visit campus for a shorter period to join seminars in which they could talk with students, work with faculty, or discuss their work at Chicago Forum events.

Ginsburg and Banout are particularly excited about inviting scholars and intellectuals who are challenging an existing orthodoxy in their fields of study, or whose work may have faced suppression in their home countries.

“The intent is not to focus on controversial topics or lines of inquiry simply because they are controversial,” Banout said. “Rather, it is to learn from those who, in good faith and on an intellectually honest basis, thoughtfully question and challenge established dogma.”

This year, the Chicago Forum also aims to expand its Academic Freedom Institute beyond higher education. A new book edited by Ginsburg and Banout examining UChicago’s unique legacy and tradition, The Chicago Canon on Free Inquiry and Expression, will be published by the University of Chicago Press. And going forward, their program design will draw on evidence-based research, particularly that of Nicholas Epley, the John Templeton Keller Professor of Behavior Science at the Booth School of Business—one of the Chicago Forum’s faculty advisors—into the conditions that foster genuine engagement across differences.

The gift also will facilitate faculty research on free expression issues across the University from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. Ginsburg is looking forward to work addressing new technologies on speech, including AI and blockchain. “In an online world in which platforms are controlled by a small number of companies,” he said, “we need to think about how technology can serve the core human interest in self-expression and conversation.”

This year, the Chicago Forum is planning events that will encourage difficult yet essential conversations on important topics. For example, it will host the first of three events in October examining a possible pathway for peace in the Middle East—conversations that will include a former leader of the Palestinian Authority who is now a scholar at Princeton University, as well as a scholar from Tel Aviv University in Israel.

“This isn’t easy work; that’s why we call these hard conversations. They require practice,” Ginsburg said. “But it’s worth it, because that friction is how we improve our ideas and create knowledge. That’s why free expression is so vital.”

To learn more, visit the Chicago Forum website.