On June 23, the Heterodox Academy (HxA), a national organization of faculty interested in academic freedom and open inquiry, issued a new four-point plan to reform colleges and universities. HxA calls the plan “Open Inquiry U.”
The HxA announcement emphasizes that its Open Inquiry points can be advocated by anyone within a university and applied to all university actions:
“The recommendations below are practical and principled, and can be championed from any position within the institution. Whether you’re changing a policy, launching a program, challenging a norm, or redesigning a course, there is a role for you in reforming higher education—one conversation, one decision, one campus at a time.”
Plan Contents
According to the Heterodox Academy’s introduction, the plan is a negation of the “cancel culture” that has taken hold in recent years. Disagreement should be civil and not the grounds for ostracization . So, the first point of the plan is to commit to open inquiry and then measure the progress of the campus toward that goal.
The second point is to “Unleash the Free Exchange of Ideas” by ending anonymous bias reporting, adopting institutional neutrality, and defending intellectual freedom.
The third point is “Insist on Viewpoint Diversity” by expanding the range of perspectives on campus, eliminating ideological litmus tests, and addressing systemic incentives toward conformity.
The final point is “Invest in Constructive Disagreement” by modeling scholarly virtues in all professional contexts, making disagreement a core academic skill, and explaining the value of pluralism in the academic setting.
Such a plan could be adopted as a policy and then implemented by offering departments incentives for accomplishments consistent with the HxA Plan.
Competing Formulations
As the Trump Administration forces universities to rethink their mission and funding plans, a number of important initiatives have started to help universities improve and refocus. The Trump funding cuts (to federal financial aid, to research grants and overhead recovery, and to federal fellowships) are forcing a reexamination of staffing size and educational priorities. Specifically, the Trump Administration emphasizes fighting antisemitism, defunding DEI, and reducing research overhead recovery to avoid subsidizing “leftist agendas.”
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The American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) has developed a gold standard for freedom of expression and conducted a campaign at Cornell for its adoption. The ACTA approach is very similar to the HxA Open Inquiry Plan, but a bit more detailed. It also includes tenets like “require free expression and viewpoint diversity training for administrative staff” and “Conduct regular evaluations of the state of free expression and intellectual diversity on campus.”
Princeton Principles for a Campus Culture of Free Inquiry were written with Cornell alumnus Donald A. Downs ‘71, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, as the principal author. The Princeton Principles give the faculty the primary responsibility for building “a culture of free and vigorous inquiry.”
When trustees, state legislatures, or alumni step in, they “should be guided by the goal of revitalizing free and vigorous inquiry, informed by knowledge and appreciation of the conditions under which scholarship is best undertaken, students best educated, and campus life most vibrantly lived,” the Princeton document reads.
Given the heightened involvement of government to force on-campus change, the consideration and adoption of a philosophical framework could be a needed first step in the systematic review of university programs to address a budget with reduced federal support.
