Events
An ongoing series of Forums for Penn Faculty and the greater Penn CommunityRecordings of most events are archived on this site.
2024 Roundtables on Academic Freedom and Open Expression
Like most institutions of higher education, the University of Pennsylvania “affirms, supports and cherishes the concepts of freedom of thought, inquiry, speech, and lawful assembly” and “encourages freedom of inquiry, discourse, teaching, research, and publication.”
Yet, there is sharp disagreement about the meaning and practice of open expression and academic freedom at Penn and at other universities. What exactly do those concepts mean? What rights do they confer? What are their limits? To what extent are they threatened in the current political and social climate? How can the central function of a university—educating students and producing new knowledge—survive in the face of such threats?
Two Faculty Senate Roundtables hosted groups of the nation’s leading scholars for timely discussions on these topics followed by questions from the audience.