NCSU Board of Trustees passes resolution in support of free speech, institutional neutrality

The North Carolina State University (NCSU) Board of Trustees University adopted a resolution Friday reaffirming the University’s commitment to freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and institutional neutrality. The resolution comes as college campuses around the country, several in North Carolina, experience disruptive protests related to the Israel/Gaza conflict.

Chairman of the board, Ed Weisiger Jr., told NCSU student newspaper the Technician, that the resolution was not spurred by current campus protests, but rather a reiteration of what he believes the University already does well.

“NC State has a green light rating from FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and one of the highest ratings of all of the UNC institutions,” Weisiger said in an interview with the Technician. “It’s something for us to be proud of, so this is in no way saying that we have an issue. This is really a reaffirmation of what I believe, and I think this board believes, that we’re already doing.”

FIRE was formerly the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

In 2017, North Carolina lawmakers passed an Act to Restore and Preserve Free Speech on the Campuses of the Constituent Institutions of the University of North Carolina. The law requires public institutions of higher education in the UNC System to adopt a policy on free expression similar to the University of Chicago Free Speech Policy Statement and prohibits those institutions from quarantining student expression into “free speech zones.”

The legislation made North Carolina a national leader in protecting free speech on campus.

The statute also:

• Requires covered public institutions of higher education to adopt a policy on free expression similar to the University of Chicago Free Speech Policy Statement;
• Prohibits covered public institutions of higher education from quarantining student expression into “free speech zones”;
• Ensures covered public institutions of higher education are open to speakers invited by students, student groups, or faculty; 
• Requires covered public institutions of higher education to adopt a range of disciplinary sanctions for students who substantially interfere with the protected free expression rights of others;
• Provides due process protections in student disciplinary cases involving speech or expressive conduct;
• Establishes a Committee on Free Expression tasked with providing a report to the legislature and the governor about free speech incidents at covered public institutions of higher education;
• Mandates covered public institutions of higher education include training about their free expression policies during freshman orientation; and
• Prohibits covered public institutions of higher education from requiring students, faculty, or administrators to express the institution’s view on social policy.

Meeting minutes show the Board of Trustees discussed the potential adoption of something similar to the ‘Chicago Principles’ at their February meeting, before a resolution was proposed.

In recent days, anti-Israeli protests have been activated on college campuses round the country. Initially focused in the Northeast at institutions such as Columbia University and New York University, protesters called for divestment from Israel and a cease fire in Gaza. The protests were then recreated, setting up encampments at a growing number of schools across the country, to include UNC Chapel Hill.

Presumably, the resolution’s commitment to institutional neutrality means NCSU cannot acquiesce to protesters demands to take political sides in the Israeli/Gaza conflict.

In Chapel Hill, UNC Students for Justice in Palestine, are currently making demands of the UNC System to:

• “Acknowledge the ongoing genocide in Palestine”
• “Provide full transparency of UNC investments”
• “Divest from companies complicit in this genocide
• and, “to end university study abroad profess to Israel”

Under the 2017 law, all UNC System institutions, UNC and NCSU chief among them, are required to maintain institutional neutrality. “The constituent institution shall remain neutral, as an institution, on the political controversies of the day,” reads the statute.

Multiple UNC System universities have adopted resolutions and policies consistent with the 2017 law, yet not all of North Carolina’s constituent institutions treat free speech the same according to a study by FIRE.

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