Academic Council discusses University’s updated response to protests, revisions to academic freedom policy

Academic Council heard Student Affairs' plans to ensure student safety in the face of increased protest activity and update Duke’s academic freedom policy in its first meeting of the 2024-25 year Thursday.

“I recognize this is a difficult time for many members of our community [and] also for higher education generally,” President Vincent Price said in an address to the council. “It's never [been] more important that we as an academic community, represented by this council, lean into these issues and think deeply about them.”

Student Affairs addresses protest response, recent changes

Mary Pat McMahon, vice provost and vice president of student affairs, and Executive Vice President Daniel Ennis delivered a presentation on the University’s response to demonstrations on campus, which McMahon stated have increased “tenfold” since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.

McMahon reviewed Student Affairs’ response to the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, which included establishing a police presence to ensure the safety of students participating in demonstrations and vigils and communicating with religious leaders on campus. McMahon explained the office’s behind-the-scenes coordination with student leaders for events such as the Oct. 9 vigil and Nov. 8 die-in and emphasized the role of the Protests, Pickets and Demonstrations team.

PPD’s outreach typically involves asking questions about event attendance and organizers’ plans, including possible media coverage and the risk of a counter-protest. Team members are frequently present at protests to monitor event proceedings — during spring 2024 alone, PPD staff were stationed at 30 different days of events.

“Students have done very good with us, understanding that we're there to cooperate, help them and facilitate things going smoothly,” McMahon said.

Fifteen events have been registered with Student Affairs for the week marking the war’s one-year anniversary, and the office’s planning efforts are largely focused on ensuring student safety and maintaining order. The department trained approximately 100 staff — including some faculty members — in de-escalation tactics this past August. 

“This is not an adjudicatory committee or a disciplinary committee,” Sussman said of the committee’s role. “It's not a permanent committee put in place to decide what is academic freedom … it's a committee that's designed to review the policies.” 

The council approved the committee’s formation in April 2024, tasking it to review existing policies and procedures and recommend changes to “institutional structures, policy and practices.”  

The committee’s work will take place in four stages.

The first and second steps are to review the University’s existing academic freedom policies and compare them to those at peer institutions. Sussman clarified the second step is not designed to “put Duke in line with some consensus among universities” but to instead act as a “benchmarking” to help devise the best policy for Duke.

The committee plans to conduct its third phase in the winter or spring, which entails reaching out to student groups to understand community sentiment around academic freedom on campus. Finally, the committee will compile a report with recommendations to be reviewed and potentially adopted by University administration, which it aims to complete by May 2025.

“A privilege of this committee [is] that we were claiming that it will move slowly and not be reactive to the best of our ability,” Sussman said, stressing that the committee has yet to decide if institutional neutrality is within its purview.

President Price delivers remarks

“We're trying to, as you'll hear, balance a variety of values that we live out as an academic community,” Price said in his address. “We prize not just academic freedom, but open expression and the ability of members of the community to express themselves.”

At the same time, he emphasized that the University’s “primary functions” include research, education and clinical care. He expressed gratitude towards administrators wrestling with questions of free expression and how best to protect community members from harassment and threats.

“It's important to learn from peers — and the committee will — but most importantly, it's important for us to articulate our own principles, and then to derive from those principles workable practices,” he said, emphasizing that Duke’s principles are not necessarily the same as other universities.

Price later took a question from a faculty member on whether or not campus protests and other events surrounding the Israel-Hamas war could be turned into a “teaching moment” for the general public. He responded that Duke’s experience is not a “PR moment” and cautioned against “outside influences [that] want to use the institution for their ends, not our ends,” though he acknowledged that recent events can serve as an “educational moment” for the University.

In other business

The council welcomed new members and received updates on what its executive committee did over the summer, including conferring summer term degrees. 

Trina Jones, council chair and Jerome M. Culp distinguished professor of law, also provided a preview for the council’s activities for the rest of the academic year, including revisions to the Faculty Handbook, a follow-up on the council’s 2021 report on regular rank non-tenure track faculty, a report on the future of Duke Kunshan University and a proposal for a joint master’s degree between the Fuqua School of Business and the Nicholas School of the Environment.

James Coleman, John S. Bradway distinguished professor of the practice of law; Tracy Jaffe, professor of radiology and vice chair of the faculty; Emily Ryo, Charles L. B. Lowndes distinguished professor of law and professor of sociology; and Joshua Socolar, professor of physics, were confirmed as new members of the faculty hearing committee, which handles termination, tenure and other employment disputes.

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