When and how departments should make political statements

Image:  The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Academic Senate approved guidelines for departmental statements on political subjects earlier this month. The guidance doesn’t—and, as mere advice, can’t—ban statements about social or political issues. But it doesn’t endorse such statements, either. “Departments as such should avoid statements on what we call here ‘external’ matters (state, national, or international policy matters),” the guidelines say. Any such...