A Message from the President: Free Expression at Our University

UW Community:

As is happening at universities across our nation, conflicts over free expression and inclusiveness have intensified over the past couple of years here at the University of Wyoming.

That is one of the reasons I announced on Nov. 8, 2022, that I would be forming UW’s Freedom of Expression, Intellectual Freedom and Constructive Dialogue Working Group -- composed of faculty, staff and students and informed by interactions with external constituents. The group was formally charged a month later, chaired by Martha McCaughey and Nevin Aiken; it worked through spring 2023, releasing a report June 7 with many recommendations that were then subject to a public comment period. I want to thank this group for a very significant body of outstanding work. Further, I appreciate the input received from many of you over the summer and this semester regarding the working group’s findings. We are now moving forward to implement a number of its recommendations.

At the same time as this work has been going on, some specific situations have arisen that have tested the bounds of free expression and constructive dialogue here at our university. I want to provide some updates on those developments and the context for my administration’s decisions on the issues.

First, it is well known that U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal recently approved a preliminary injunction requiring the university to allow Todd Schmidt to regain his tabling privileges in the Wyoming Union. Judge Freudenthal’s preliminary ruling was that UW infringed upon Schmidt’s First Amendment rights and that his public misgendering of a transgender UW student did not constitute illegal harassment. While the court found that the university has the right to regulate certain conduct by those tabling in the student union, the court concluded that Schmidt’s conduct was not illegal harassment or discrimination.

The university has chosen to not challenge the preliminary injunction, although after the court recently dismissed some of Schmidt’s case, we were required to refile an answer to his complaint while we consider how the case moves forward. While our motive in suspending Schmidt’s tabling privileges was to protect our students, we have accepted the preliminary ruling and wish to move forward. We will be watching closely to make sure that Schmidt’s speech -- and that of others -- does not go beyond the legal bounds recognized in this ruling and established in decades of case law.

Second, the university is going to continue to allow speakers and activities of many kinds on our campus, including a student-organized drag show event that is planned for the upcoming Shepard Symposium on Social Justice -- which marks the 25th anniversary of the murder of one of our students, Matthew Shepard; and a conservative speaker, Riley Gaines, invited by the university’s student chapter of Turning Point USA. While some groups and individuals outside the university have criticized UW for allowing such activities, the university must continue to provide access to its campus without censoring certain groups. Students and others involved in these activities have the right to express themselves, within legal limits, under protections provided by the First Amendment.

A fundamental principle is that the university plays a unique role by providing a neutral forum for the deliberation and debate of public issues. Providing such a forum does not mean the university either endorses or condemns the different perspectives expressed. What it does mean is that, as our free expression group states, UW’s “adherence to impartiality reaffirms the intellectual freedom of all at UW to seek and receive information without restriction and enjoy unfettered access to all expression of ideas through which any side of a question, cause or movement may be explored.”

In our nation, we must accept that we’re likely to hear and read things that are offensive to us -- sometimes deeply offensive. As the working group says: “At a public university, it is inevitable that the ideas and beliefs of different members of the UW community or visitors to campus will conflict with one another. UW does not shield individuals from the free expression of ideas and criticism, including that which community members may find uncomfortable, disagreeable or even deeply offensive. The expression of criticism must respect the legal right of others to express themselves without serving to obstruct, censor or otherwise interfere with the rights of others to hear those ideas.”

I reiterate, and the working group acknowledges, that there are legal limitations to free expression on our campus. But feeling uncomfortable or offended -- and, in many cases, even feeling unsafe -- is not, in and of itself, grounds for stopping speech.

At the same time, we must acknowledge that the First Amendment allows expression that is so reprehensible that it must be answered. Within the framework of institutional neutrality, there may be occasions when I speak in response to speech that is objectionable from every reasonable perspective. I will continue to advocate for the university, as the working group says, to “support and model a culture of respectful engagement in which even the most difficult or challenging of ideas can be expressed, received and contested with grace through the practice of civil discourse and constructive dialogue.” And I will encourage “people with diverse backgrounds and values to speak, write, live and learn together in a welcoming, inclusive and intellectually stimulating environment that celebrates free expression and intellectual and academic freedom.”

With those overall goals in mind, as I discussed last week with our Board of Trustees, as a result of campus, trustee and other input on the recommendations of the Freedom of Expression, Intellectual Freedom and Constructive Dialogue Working Group, I can say there was broad support for the group’s statement of principles and many recommendations made in three areas of campus activity: operationalizing, communicating and practicing these principles. Implementation of these recommendations will require significant additional work, some of which can be folded into ongoing work associated with our strategic plan.

In order to stay focused on these activities, I have asked working group co-chair Martha McCaughey to work over the fall semester with me, faculty and staff from the working group, our three senates, my cabinet and other campus organizations as appropriate to ensure that we undertake a serious and sustained effort to support a culture of free expression and respectful discourse on this campus -- and to make us a model for the nation. This will include communication to campus through a website that will maintain a current status report of key actions being taken, and planned, to achieve these goals.

We live during a time when political and social divisiveness seems to be tearing apart the very fabric of our society. We can’t let that happen. Nor can we depart from the principle of free expression that has been part of our nation’s foundation from the beginning. I implore all of us, amid all of the disagreements, to find common ground and build upon it to tackle the myriad of challenges we face in the 21st century. That is what has made our country great -- and, ultimately, will carry our wonderful state and university forward.

Sincerely,

Ed Seidel, President