At this time of great national stress, when indispensable institutions such as the justice system, the press, fair elections and even higher education are under attack, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Chicago and a dozen other leading universities have declared their “neutrality” on public issues. Yale must never do the same.
Last fall, I gave a talk to the students and fellows of Timothy Dwight College in which I called for Yale students and faculty, as well as Yale’s president, to defend Enlightenment values when, as now, they are at risk. I renew that call today.
The values of the Enlightenment are foundational to our society. These values gave birth to the United States of America, to our ideas of constitutional government and democracy, to free enterprise, to our appreciation of science, to our Bill of Rights, to the separation of church and state, to our ideas of balanced government and separation of powers, to our toleration and acceptance of difference, to the rule of law and impartial justice and to much, much more.
In my talk, I reviewed Yale’s historic failure to embrace Enlightenment values. For a quarter millennium of its history, Yale rejected important Enlightenment values, and when it finally embraced those values, as it did in 1962 by elevating intellectual capacity and ending race, religion, ethnicity and gender as criteria for admission, it did not use that opportunity to focus the Yale community on Enlightenment values. It is time for Yale to do so now.
Yale’s failure to advocate and inculcate the values of the Enlightenment has always had consequences. Today, it gives comfort to Yale graduates who promote book banning in public libraries, foster distrust of science and an honest press, return religion to our politics and governance, reject the value of diversity and inclusion, defeat the impartiality of our justice system, impede democratic processes through disinformation, gerrymanders and other impositions, distort public school curricula for the sake of political and religious agendas, and even denigrate the value of higher education. Such behavior is not what the Enlightenment teaches nor what Yale University, whether through silence or neutrality, should allow.
Yale should publicly declare its support for and readiness to defend Enlightenment values. By doing so, it will distinguish itself among American universities and become the leading voice for higher education at a time when our nation needs it most.
It’s time for Yale to codify, inculcate and stand up for the values of the Enlightenment. Yale will thereby ennoble the identity of higher education and produce more graduates of whom we all can be proud.
In the name of the Enlightenment, Yale should conduct a community-wide discussion of the values Yale should champion and the values in the defense of which neutrality or silence is not a choice.
So, Yale, what are your values?
RICHARD ROSENFELD is an alumnus of Yale College Class of 1963 and the Yale Daily News. He is also an Associate Fellow of Timothy Dwight College, an entrepreneur, an independent scholar, a historian, the namesake of Rosenfeld Hall and distinguished author of American Aurora (St. Martin’s Press). Contact him at richard.rosenfeld@aya.yale.edu