Universities and Values

Ever since Vice President Leni Robredo announced her candidacy for President, there has been a trend of universities lighting their buildings with pink, Leni's campaign color. Last year, Universidad de Sta. Isabel, Leni Robredo's alma mater, lit the façade of its building with the color pink. Adamson University did the same in October 2021. San Beda University (Pres. Duterte's alma mater) followed suit later that December. Hundreds of educators from UST, ADMU, La Salle, (and many more!) have also publicly endorsed Leni's bid for the presidency. 

Why do universities show their support, if not their formal endorsement, for certain political candidates? People often answer very simply: "the candidate exemplifies the values of the university." This answer implies more than it seems. At the very least, it implies:

1. That universities have a set of values that it wants to uphold, and
2. That upholding that set of values means endorsing political candidates who exemplify those values.

The problem is that the university is very very complex. It is very difficult to determine what values a university should have. We often understand the university to be a place where debate can and should take place-- in particular, debates about what values the university should have. Therefore, it is said that whenever the university takes any political stance, it discourages those (hopefully productive) debates. 

Going even further, even suggesting that a university should have a set of values that it should adhere to invites controversy, especially among conservatives (or, in our case, BBM-Sara supporters hehe✌). See how people react to students taking any sort of political stance-- just focus on studying! Likewise, universities should just focus on education, not politics.

There's an internal tension in the idea that a school or university should stay away from "imposing" certain values and that they should instead stick to teaching. Sticking to teaching is in itself a value. In fact, it is impossible to argue that a university should have no values at all. "University" is not just an institution consisting of buildings, systems, teachers, and students. It is also a concept. People have ideas about what a university should be like. You have an idea that it will have degree programs and courses and organizations and activities. These ideas are not value-free. Why do you expect these things in a university? Maybe, you expect them because university is a place to specialize in a certain field, or to expand horizons, or to find yourself. In any case, your ideas about a university speaks to what values you think a university may have. 

 To borrow from Barnett (2022):

"On the one hand, the university should be a value-free zone; on the other hand, the university is necessarily a value-laden institution. The university [...] cannot held but swim amid values."

Part of the difficulty with political endorsements made by universities is that we can't really be sure whether the endorsements are made due to some inherent value found within the university, or whether they are made due to some emerging value found within university administrators or the student body. 

If it isn't shown that a set of values is undoubtedly inherent in the character of the university, it is easy to minimize the significance of the endorsement. Like so: "This does not represent San Beda, just the current student body. And not even the whole student body, just the people in the student council. And how dare the student council impose their political beliefs onto every other Bedan!" It's that easy! 

In the best case (or worst, depending on your POV), you can even convince someone that the endorsement is evidence that the candidate being endorsed is evil. Like so: "Leni keeps talking about fighting dictators, but they are dictating to Bedans everywhere how they should vote. That's not radical love. Etc." It's that easy!

So, if it's difficult to justify an endorsement based on emerging values within university administrators or the student body, maybe we can justify it based on inherent values. But what are these inherent values? 

All we have to start with is the uncontroversial idea that all universities should convey information to students, or at the very least convey how to find information and produce new information. This early in the discussion, we already find ourselves at a crossroads: what information do we want to convey? 

How this question should be answered is still debatable. A lot of schools are defunding arts and humanities departments because of the perception that these courses don't create much economic value to students. Many defenders of the arts and humanities argue that the university should try to impart knowledge not for real-world payoffs, but for the sake of reason, truth, and knowledge itself. 

If we go by the latter (the "reason and truth" value), it's not hard to see why a university might favor a candidate that fights for truth over candidates that weaponize mis/disinformation networks. 

How about the former option? Universities should only impart information that leads to economic payoffs. Sometimes, this view also says something like "creating innovations" or "raising globally competitive leaders." But does this necessarily exclude so-called "political" values? I don't think so. 

Let's assume the most non-political view on what a university should be. Let's say universities have no responsibility to do anything other than impart information that could be useful to a student. There's a problem there. If you say that there is such a thing as "information," then there must also be such a thing as "truth." If you want to encourage finding information, you must necessarily encourage students to verify the truth of certain claims. Whatever kind of university it is, whether it is public or private, religious or secular, universities must, by definition, espouse the defense of truth-telling, critical thinking, intellectual integrity, and respect for truth. 

Regardless of your opinion on what subjects to teach students, all roads lead to truth. Unfortunately, respect for truth is now something that politicians are routinely willing to set aside. These candidates clearly do not exemplify the values of any university. Likewise, candidates who fight for truth (or are at least the most vocal about it) exemplify the most basic value of any university.

Does this mean that they can endorse these candidates? I think they do. Although, of course, it's not required.

Universities are not separate institutions that are free from politics. They are part of the world. Students from the University of the Philippines are constantly accused of being members, or at least sympathizers of, terrorist groups. The University itself is often said to be a recruiting ground for these groups. Moreover, all universities are regulated by the state through the enactment of laws and through the orders of executive departments. In the Philippine context, RA 7722 created the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), which is an independent body separate from the Department of Education and attached to the Office of the President for administrative purposes only. It has the power to recommend development plans for higher education, set minimum standards for programs, monitor and evaluate performance, etc. Its budget is determined by Congress. Thus, universities, even if their teachings are not overtly political (let's still assume that they just teach math or something 'apolitical'), they are still political objects.

Why does this mean that they should be able to endorse candidates? Because their very survival as truth-oriented institutions may hinge on who the next President could be. Textbooks can be rewritten to reflect not the truth, but the various historical revisionism projects of those in power. Curricula may deprioritize certain truths in favor of a sanitized, propagandistic version of events. Their character as spaces for academic freedom and debate may be erased if a dissenter suddenly disappears from campus. 

"There are moral goods enfolded in [the university's] form of life, and necessarily so, if it is to be sustained. But those goods... can only be understood as founded on a shared belief in a life of struggles to understand the world in its multitudinous aspects, and of a truthfulness allied to integrity." (Barnett, 2021)

 All in all, I think that instead of asking why X University is endorsing A and not B, or about why X University is endorsing anybody at all, people should be asking why some candidates choose not to be truthful and why people believe that it's more important to accuse a school of being dictatorial than it is to oppose a dictator in the making.