This article was originally published in the November 2024 print edition.
On Oct. 24, 2024, President Sarah Willie-LeBreton announced a review of the college’s policies on expressive activity, in response to what she described as “clear and pointed guidance” from the U.S. Department of Education. The proposed revisions included restrictions on anonymous protests — changes that quickly stirred concerns throughout the campus community. Within five days, a revised version of the policy was shared. While this incident might seem isolated, it speaks to a much broader trend in American higher education: an institutional fixation on self-preservation, wrapped in the language of “safety” and “community protection.”
Smith’s proposed changes to its protest policy offer a textbook example of how universities — under pressure from political, legal and financial forces — are increasingly prioritizing their own risk management over their educational mission. These revisions, positioned as safeguards for student safety, are not designed to protect the intellectual freedom or democratic engagement of students, but to minimize the institution’s exposure to controversy. The real concern here isn’t the safety of students, but the preservation of Smith’s image in the face of potential legal or reputational damage.
This shift in priorities has been unfolding for years. While universities once presented themselves as centers of intellectual engagement and critical inquiry, they are now more focused on protecting themselves from external forces. This is a fundamental transformation — one in which policies that claim to defend students from harm are, in fact, designed to shield the university from external scrutiny. Smith’s proposal to limit anonymous protests is a prime example. Far from fostering an open space for dissent and free expression, it seeks to curb the kinds of activism that might attract legal scrutiny or media attention. The institution’s concern is not about student rights or safety, but about insulating itself from external pressure.
This transformation has deep roots. Following the Occupy Wall Street movement in the early 2010s, universities began tightening their policies on speech and protest. The 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education, which emphasized campus safety as a legal and reputational necessity, set the tone for this transformation. The emphasis on safety, however, was never about intellectual or student safety — it was about avoiding legal and public relations pitfalls. Today, Smith is following a similar pattern, one in which the rhetoric of safety and community well-being masks a deeper concern: protecting the institution from potential fallout.
As universities are increasingly enmeshed in their own survival mechanisms, policies that purport to promote free speech and protect student safety are actually designed to manage risks. What we are witnessing is a shift from an ethos of open discourse to one of risk management. The goal is no longer to foster democratic engagement or intellectual growth, but to minimize liability and political fallout. This growing emphasis on controlling campus discourse is not just a response to external pressures — it is a reflection of an institution’s internal fragility.
This trend is deeply troubling because it marks a crisis of both intellectual and institutional purpose. Colleges and universities like Smith, who once prided themselves on being spaces for robust debate and intellectual risk-taking, have become more like corporations, preoccupied with protecting their bottom line — namely, their public image and financial stability. Rather than serving as arenas for the free exchange of ideas, they are increasingly dominated by bureaucratic concerns, where every student protest or controversial opinion is viewed through the lens of potential risk. It’s a strategy rooted in fear, not a commitment to higher learning.
The danger here is not that universities are becoming more politically correct or suppressing speech; it is that they are becoming so risk-averse that they have lost sight of their fundamental mission. By focusing on self-preservation, Smith risks hollowing out the very purpose they were founded to serve. If Smith continues to treat their campuses as spaces of ideological and legal risk management rather than intellectual engagement, they will cease to be institutions of higher learning in any meaningful sense. They will simply become institutions of survival — locked in a paranoiac spiral of surveillance and control.
The real question facing higher education today is not how to further regulate student behavior or curtail protest, but how to reclaim their core educational mission. Are they universities dedicated to fostering critical thinking, intellectual challenge and free expression? Or are they just another institution scrambling to preserve its reputation at any cost? The future of Smith, and of higher education more broadly, depends on how this question is answered. The survival of universities as spaces for intellectual risk, open debate, and democratic engagement depends on breaking free from the reflexive impulse toward self-protection. Only then can these institutions begin to fulfill their true purpose — preparing students not to conform, but to question, to challenge, and to think critically about the world around them.
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