Penn’s Unprincipled Attack on Open Expression

Last week, the University of Pennsylvania proposed new draft Guidelines on Open Expression that are a disturbing threat to free speech at a campus with a track record of suppressing dissent.

The goal of suppressing all protests is apparent in these principles: “Actions taken beyond making one’s thoughts heard or read—particularly when such actions violate these Principles, Penn policy, or relevant law—do not constitute speech and expression protected by these Principles.”

The presumption should be that all expressive acts—including the right to protest—are protected by principles of open expression. To claim that “actions” have no protections even when they do not violate any policies or laws is a disturbingly narrow vision of free expression.

The specific rules on protests and expression are even worse: “Disrupting University operations is not permitted. This includes conduct that interferes unreasonably with the activities of other persons; causes injury to persons or property or threatens to cause such injury; holding meetings, events, or demonstrations under circumstances where health or safety is endangered; or knowingly interfering with unimpeded movement in a University location or with University operations.”

There’s a lot of vague language here, beginning with “disrupting” and extending to “interferes unreasonably” (which is later expanded to “knowingly interfering,” no matter how small or reasonable) with any “University operations.” And it’s hard to imagine any kind of sizable protest (or even tabling on the quad) that could obey a standard that requires “unimpeded movement” everywhere at all times.

Most disturbing of all is the rule against “holding meetings, events, or demonstrations under circumstances where health or safety is endangered.” This gives the administration free rein to ban controversial speech. If someone feels “unsafe” because of an event, or if someone makes a vague threat, this provision requires anyone holding an activity to pre-emptively cancel it or face the consequences.

In fact, it retroactively makes all event organizers personally responsible if anyone’s safety is “endangered” at an event, even if they had no way of anticipating what might happen. And the “this includes” provision means that so much more could be deemed to be “disrupting” in violation of these new rules.

The principles make speech off-limits across the campus and punish anyone who might “hold a demonstration or gathering in a clinical care facility, library, museum, private office or residence, or in any facility that normally contains valuable or sensitive materials, collections, equipment, or records protected by law or University policy.” Considering that every campus building contains valuable equipment, this rule effectively bans every “gathering” in every building. And it’s notable that this rule includes nothing about actually being disruptive—a silent protest (such as wearing black armbands in the library) is still completely prohibited. Technically, the rules would even ban a “gathering” of a study group at the library—but we all know that these broad restrictions are purely intended to suppress protests.

There’s a rule that “online harassment or the doxing of students, faculty or staff” can be punished, but neither online harassment nor doxing is defined, and this is alarmingly vague. Criticizing someone and listing their email address may be a deplorable act in certain circumstances, but it should not be punishable by the university. And the rules restricting speech extend even further: “they may not go beyond criticism to express or imply a threat to an organization’s or speaker’s … affiliation with the University.”

This seems to be a ban on expression that calls for an organization or a speaker to be disciplined. As much as I hate people urging student groups be derecognized or employees fired for their speech, the solution is not to prohibit such expression and discipline it. This rule would allow Penn to punish any students, staff or faculty who called for Amy Wax to be disciplined for her expression.

According to these rules, “Given the open nature of Penn’s campus, the Division of Public Safety (DPS) may ask for University identification in University locations.” That’s a very odd interpretation of the “open nature” of a campus, where guards (including the supposedly “neutral” “Open Expression Observers”) can demand your papers at any time, and an indication that Penn could use this to ban outsiders from its campus.

There’s a disturbing “papers, please” mentality to the principles that’s also used to suppress freedom of the press: “News media are required to produce credentials when requested by University Communications and access may be limited, especially during demonstrations, to allow the Division of Public Safety to maintain campus safety.”

How do the media threaten campus safety? Why would special limits on journalists protect anyone? Why do “demonstrations” in particular need bans on the media? And this provision also applies to student journalists, meaning that students who are also reporters can be punished if they fail to identify themselves or if they personally participate in demonstrations in spite of a media ban imposed by the campus police. A policy that truly supports free expression would prohibit repression of the media rather than outlining all the ways the administration can suppress freedom of the press.

The principles seek to suppress speech in many bureaucratic ways, even decreeing that “livestreaming an event requires approval by the Vice Provost for University Life.” Penn should be encouraging and helping organizations to live-stream their events rather than creating new rules to ban this at the whim of an administrator.

The principles also suppress political speech: “Any invitations to political candidates or events featuring or promoting political candidates or parties (without regard to political party or viewpoints) are subject to additional requirements due to the University’s tax-exempt status.” In reality, there is no requirement that tax-exempt organizations ban political candidates and parties. The only possible risk to tax-exempt status occurs when administrations impose additional rules such as these that bestow university approval on certain political candidates or parties.

The University of Pennsylvania has long had one of the worst speech codes on American college campuses. Its Code of Student Conduct declares that “Responsible behavior includes but is not limited to the following obligations.” That kind of catch-all language means that the administration can punish any student deemed to violate a vague standard of “responsible behavior” for anything they say or do. The first step of any expressed commitment to free speech should be to revise this Penn speech code and limit its power to suppress expression.

In 2024, the AAUP-Penn chapter criticized the Penn administration for repression of free speech, and many on Penn’s campus have expressed concern that these principles seek to codify that repression and further restrict free expression at Penn while mockingly pretending to adore the concept. Penn’s proposed principles are bad policies, badly written, that too often have the goal of suppressing free expression or the unintended effect of repression.