US universities mull adoption of Chatham House Rule in classes

Adopting non-attribution rules for conversations in classrooms could allow lecturers and students to speak more freely amid a “chilling effect” on campus discussions, according to US scholars.

Chatham House Rule – which allows participants to share information from a conversation only if they do not ascribe the remarks to a particular speaker – has been adopted most widely to date at the newly opened University of Austin, which presents itself as a bastion of free speech compared with traditional institutions.

Similar measures are already in place at Harvard University in the Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School. A working group at the institution recently suggested that the rule should be applied more widely.

The principle is used by the University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression, according to its director, Tom Ginsburg.

“The general phenomenon of people being unwilling to take risks because of social media is absolutely well documented, and there’s just a ton of self-censorship out there,” said the professor of international law and political science.

“We don’t have any hard data on how much this has affected the classroom, but a lot of faculty, informally, will tell you that they think discussions are not as vigorous as they used to be.”

A survey of more than 6,000 US academics published last week by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression found that 87 per cent of respondents reported difficulties in having an open and honest conversation about at least one hot-button political topic.

Professor Ginsburg said those who valued the robust exchange of ideas should welcome any experiment to encourage more honest debates, particularly at a time when many academics were “afraid of the students”.

“Chatham might expand freedom in the classroom if professors aren’t worried about being quoted out of context or recorded and put out on social media,” he said.

“But I think the primary benefit and the focus should be on the students, because those are the people that we really need to get speaking.”

Chatham House Rule could encourage students to view the classroom as a “sacred space” in which they can try out ideas and do not have to be held responsible for them in perpetuity, Professor Ginsburg added. However, he warned that enforcement would be tricky.

Steven McGuire, the Paul and Karen Levy fellow in campus freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, said Chatham House Rule could act as a “guard rail” to protect against students being ostracised for something they reportedly said in class.

“The university classroom should be a place of exploration and experimentation – somewhere students can feel free to express their views, try out new arguments, and even play devil’s advocate without fear that they will be personally attacked or cancelled for what they say,” Dr McGuire said.

Hank Reichman, professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay and former vice-president of the American Association of University Professors, pointed out that as long ago as 1915 the AAUP had noted that classroom discussions “ought not to be supposed to be utterances for the public at large”; it would be “ham-fisted” to enforce this with Chatham House Rule, he added.

“Whether Chatham House Rule is the best way of dealing with the problem is questionable, to be sure. But given the dangers of surreptitious recording, of doxing…I think the principle is more important than ever, as much if not more for students as for faculty,” he said.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com