American academic and university president Robert Zimmer died on Tuesday, May 23 at the age of 75. Zimmer was a mathematician by training, one whose teaching career took him around academia but whose legacy primarily resides with the University of Chicago. Having departed from the school in 2002 for a second career in administration, he returned only a few years later in 2006 to take the reins as president of the university overall. He stepped down only in 2021, due to brain surgery for the glioblastoma that eventually took his life.
Normally the biographies of college administrators would not merit consideration by National Review – unless they are caught on camera hectoring invited speakers, that is. But Zimmer’s is a special case, and in fact for reasons directly related to that example.
In 2023 the direct threat to academic freedom and freedom of expression is no longer a minor news story percolating below the surface of the media swirl; it is a commonplace. The countless stories of intimidated students, censorious professors, disruptively and occasionally violently protested guest speakers, and suffocatingly oppressive DEI administrators need no rehearsal here. Zimmer not only foresaw the danger as far back 2014 but acted to forestall it at the University of Chicago by issuing, under the auspices of his presidency, the so-called Chicago principles, an unstinting commitment to the openness of the academy to unpopular ideas.
The Chicago principles are simple and come close to being eternal in their intellectual verities. And yet their almost heroic bluntness feels bracing to people disoriented by the current academic turmoil engulfing college campuses: “It is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. . . . Concerns about civility and mutual respect can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however offensive or disagreeable those ideas may be to some members of our community.”
The statement continues with the canny acknowledgement that activists have begun to use protesting (normally a matter directly implicated by free speech) as a backdoor attempt at censorship, and declares that University of Chicago will not be fooled: “The freedom to debate . . . does not, of course, mean that individuals may say whatever they wish, whenever they wish.” It then lists commonsense exceptions like criminal violations, defamation, threats and harassment, invasion of privacy, and time/place restrictions. The upshot of it all is: You cannot silence your opponents by intimidating them, whether via mob protests or private threats.
That is as straightforward a commitment to free intellectual inquiry and the maintence of a genuinely free and open discourse (inquiry and discourse are two separate things, as the heckler’s veto illustrates) as it gets, a flag Zimmer and Chicago planted in the ground nearly a decade ago. Other elite universities, such as Yale and Stanford, have garned praise in recent months for fighting back against the censoriousness of their activist Left student bodies, but in both cases (particularly Stanford Law School’s), when they took their proper stand in defense of free inquiry and discourse, they did so as an obvious echo of the Chicago principles.
The University of Chicago, meanwhile, despite any number of failings, has not been roiled by similarly explosive controversies, nor have most of the 84 colleges and universities that have subsequently adopted it as their free-speech code as well. It helps to have a framework in place, and we are extremely lucky that Zimmer gave us one as sturdy as this. So rest in peace, Professor Zimmer, and speaking as an alumnus (Law ’08), thank you for keeping the University of Chicago a beacon of clarity in its commitment to open academic inquiry during a time when it has become deeply unfashionable.