The Future of Universities Must Be Built on Firm Values

In many ways, the horrifying attacks of October 7, 2023 were a watershed moment for American universities. Amid sometimes-violent campus protests over the war in Gaza and the tense congressional hearings that followed, the whole nation saw what close observers had noted for some time: that too many universities had drifted from the core values and principles that had enabled them to carry out their missions and made them the envy of the world. The resulting perception was that many of the nation’s top institutions had become rudderless at best or politicized at worst. On some campuses, this revelation came at the expense of Jewish students’ sense of safety and belonging. The ramifications are still playing out as universities reflect on what they stand for and take mitigating actions that are bound to shape campus life for years.

At Vanderbilt, we’ve navigated these turbulent waters by using as our guide our core purpose of pathbreaking research and transformative education, grounded in our value of free expression, which we’ve formulated as three pillars.

The first pillar is the principle of open forums—a university’s commitment to providing plenty of spaces where issues can be explored and discussed without the threat of censorship.