Columbia has been engaged in an ongoing discussion about how the University can best fulfill its academic mission of teaching, learning, and research while creating and sustaining an environment that enables free expression, rigorous debate, and open dialogue. Similar discussions have taken place at other universities, and some have adopted principles of institutional neutrality or restraint as a way of protecting and enabling free expression by faculty and students on their campuses.
Given our storied history; the extraordinary scope and depth of our scholarship, disciplines, curricula, and programs; and the unique position of our community, Columbia also has a distinctive role to play in advancing this critical discussion. Determining whether and to what degree Columbia should take an institutional position on public matters is a vitally important question, and it is central to our commitment to enabling open discourse and the exchange of ideas in our community.
“We have endeavored to craft recommendations with the flexibility to accommodate the extraordinary breadth of responsibilities and activities of a modern research university, and that respect the specific history and culture of our academic home, Columbia University in the City of New York.”
Committee Co-Chairs
See the full list of Committee Members.
News and Announcements
September 25, 2025
The University will develop a process to provide further and more concrete guidance on how these recommendations should be applied. The Committee encourages you to read the report in full.
September 17, 2024
Daniel Abebe, Dean of Columbia Law School and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law, and Mark Mazower, Ira D. Wallach Professor of History and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Director, Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination, accepted the appointments. Read more.