As Yale University mulls a policy of institutional neutrality, administrators have ordered the university’s Women’s Center to adopt a stance of “broad neutrality,” leading some students to wonder what that means. means for a historically militant organization.

The directive from the Yale College dean’s office comes months after the Women’s Center was scheduled to participate in a conference on the war between Israel and Hamas titled “Pinkwashing and Feminism(s) in Gaza,” but dropped out. Students from the Women’s Center said The Yale Daily News at the time he withdrew from the conference (which was held with other sponsors) to ease tensions with the administration after the center allegedly ignored the requests of a student who requested a meeting to push for greater representation of Jewish women.

Although it is a student organization, the Women’s Center employs university-funded employees, which appears to give the administration greater latitude in directing its actions.

“Broad neutrality”

In the unsigned directive from the Yale College Dean’s Office released last month, administrators noted that the Women’s Center “occupies a unique position” on campus “and within the organizational structure of Yale” as a “a student-run entity with some degree of institutional support.” Although it is subject to the same rules as other student organizations, it also benefits from additional privileges; YWC board members and staff are paid by Yale, making them essentially employees.

The letter outlined four expectations: that the Women’s Center welcomes all students “regardless of their personal characteristics or beliefs”; that it “maintains broad neutrality in its programming and actions”; that board members communicate “regularly and openly” with a staff advisor and a graduate assistant; and that it provides students with “opportunities for participation.”

In a statement emailed to Inside higher education, Melanie Boyd, dean of student affairs at Yale College, wrote that the Women’s Center “must be a resource for the entire community” and that such long-standing expectations “must be periodically reiterated.” She added that “the current conversation is prior to and distinct from” efforts to consider institutional neutrality.

As the directive circulated online, it raised more questions than answers, leaving students, alumni and outside observers wondering what a mandate of “broad neutrality” would mean for a center with a history of activism on abortion rights and access and other hot-button issues. .

So far, the administration has not clarified – at least publicly – what it means by “broad neutrality.”

Boyd acknowledged via email that “the phrase ‘broad neutrality’ has raised concerns among current members of the (Women’s Center) board of directors, and I have worked with them, as well as my colleagues, to clarify intent and revise language accordingly. The fundamental goal is that the Center’s programming, taken cumulatively, does not leave student groups feeling unwelcome in the space.

Inside higher education contacted several members of the Yale Women’s Center Board of Trustees for additional information; all declined to comment or did not respond by deadline Wednesday afternoon.

Some former Women’s Center board members, however, have issued scathing public statements accusing Yale administrators of suppressing student speech in support of Palestine.

“As a former board member of the Yale Women’s Center, this is unprecedented. The admin did nothing when we excluded anti-abortion activists or included all people of all genders. YWC has always been student-run and school administrators are attempting to censor pro-Palestinian speech,” Yale graduate Rita Wang wrote on social media.

A vague directive

Experts note that the call for “broad neutrality” offers little policy specificity for the Women’s Center. And some fear that the vague nature of the directive could have a deterrent effect.

Jonathan Friedman, Sy Syms’ managing director for U.S. free speech and education programs at PEN America, argued that such nebulous guidelines for what individuals or organizations can say often lead to uncertainty, prompting people to self-censor for fear of violating policy.

He added that it is not clear that the “broad neutrality” directive has any teeth.

“I think what’s not clear to me is how much force this directive has behind it,” Friedman said. “Is this a formal obligation? Is this simply the preference of the dean’s office? Because when you’re told to have a policy of great neutrality, that can mean a lot of different things to different people.”

Friedman also suggested that it would be unusual if the call for “broad neutrality” applied only to the Yale Women’s Center and not other groups. (It is unclear whether others received the directive.)

He added that the desired goal appears to be to engage the Women’s Center in questions about its mission and the scope of its comments. But while the directive is a well-intentioned effort to spark dialogue, he said, its vagueness undermines that goal.

“This has the unfortunate side effect of looking like an attempt to chill the Women’s Center’s discourse,” Friedman said.

Steven McGuire, the Paul and Karen Levy campus freedom scholar at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, also pointed out the unnecessary ambiguity of the “broad neutrality” order.

He said that even if Yale adopted a policy of institutional neutrality, as it envisions, it would not prevent student activist groups from taking positions on political issues. At institutions that have adopted such policies, he added, there are still campus groups with clear positions, such as the Young Republicans and Democrats.

But he stressed that such groups are meant to welcome everyone, and he suspects that Yale’s directive may be motivated by underlying concerns that the Women’s Center cannot meet with a Jewish student, as requested. , and the Title VI implications of this exclusion. McGuire speculated that the directive is intended to encourage the inclusion of all students rather than suppress free speech.

Although he did not see the issue as specifically relating to institutional neutrality, he noted that as such policies gain momentum elsewhere, they will raise similarly thorny debates, which he welcomes.

“As more institutions hopefully embrace institutional neutrality, there will need to be ongoing discussions about how to address some of these issues,” McGuire said. “And I think it will be a good, healthy conversation and will put American higher education in a better place than it is now, where we are debating the question of whose political opinion should be represented in an official statement of the institution or something like that.”