Wake Forest’s Statement of Free Expression and Academic Freedom

The decision to draft a shared University statement on free expression and academic freedom was an important step, creating the opportunity to draft, discuss, and refine a new statement as a diverse and engaged campus community.

Draft Statement

The internal Draft Statement is linked below. Note that line numbers are turned on to facilitate feedback. The Preamble and Notes document is offered to provide context and additional resources, especially where the statement language is particular to the history and legal context of freedom of expression.

• Draft Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom [Feb 11, 2025]
• Preamble and Notes to the Draft Statement [Feb 11, 2025; this document may be updated as needed]

Campus Discussions

Beginning with Founders Day (Feb 20, 2025), when Dean of the Law School Andrew Klein will speak about free expression and academic freedom, there will be a period for campus conversations about the statement and the underlying concepts of freedom of expression and academic freedom. If you have questions about hosting one of these discussions, please contact Matthew Phillips. The CAT resource below has a wealth of information for conversation facilitators.

• Discussion Pre-Reads and Facilitator Materials: “Exploring Free Expression & Academic Freedom” [Feb 17, 2025; this approachable and detailed resource was prepared by and is hosted by the Center for the Advancement of Teaching]
• Community Conversation Planning Form. Please use this form to let us know if you are planning or have hosted a campus discussion about the Draft Statement.

Feedback on the Draft Statement

We’ve been careful to emphasize that the draft statement is just that: a draft. We need a starting place for community conversation about what free expression and academic freedom mean at Wake Forest. The drafting team has also done careful research and made thoughtful and frequently subtle decisions, which they will attempt to contextualize in a document guide.

Despite that reflective work, there will certainly be ways that community feedback can be used to improve the final draft. Anyone in the community, with particular invitation to people who have taken part in a group conversation about the draft statement, can complete a form to submit feedback, which will be tracked and considered by the drafting team with public responses.

• Submit Feedback on the Draft Statement
• View submitted feedback and responses [Will be posted as feedback is received and reviewed]

Timeline Overview

• Initial Drafting (July–September 2024). The Provost appointed a group of faculty and staff to review earlier research about free expression at Wake Forest and across higher education and to draft a new, shared statement of free expression and academic freedom that will articulate a clear university standard rooted in Wake Forest’s honorable tradition and culture of free expression. This group will publish a draft statement and then conduct a “notice and comment” process to review and incorporate feedback from across the community.
• Leadership Briefings (September–October 2024). In the early stages of campus discussion of the new draft statement, members of the drafting team will meet with campus leadership groups, including the Provost’s Student Leadership Advisory Group, Staff Advisory Council, Faculty Senate Executive Committee, Student Government, and the Deans Council. These briefings will provide an opportunity for early feedback, but also expand the number of people who have had a chance to carefully review and lead conversations about the draft statement.
• Campus Conversations (February–March 2025). Leveraging great experiences with the Call to Conversation series and the long history of formal and informal debate at Wake Forest, student, staff, and faculty groups (e.g. a college department, a sorority, or a staff affinity group) will host discussions about the draft statement to share ideas and then report feedback. Some of these conversations will take place in existing groups, while others will bring together Wake Forest community members from an array of backgrounds in the spirit of the valuable civil discourse that the free expression statement is meant to encourage and protect.
• Board of Trustees Review (April 2025). Wake Forest’s governing board will review the draft statement in April for adoption as policy of the Board. It is distinctive and meaningful that the Trustees have asked the administration to conduct the thorough and inclusive process outlined here prior to their approval: this statement is intended to be the work of the current campus community of Wake Forest University.

Drafting Team

• Matthew Clifford, Dean of Students
• Mary Crosby, Associate Counsel
• John Dinan, Professor of Politics & International Affairs
• Simeon Ilesanmi, University Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies
• Sam Perrotta (committee staff), Chief of Staff, Office of the Provost
• Matthew Phillips (chair), Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives and Teaching Professor of Business Law & Ethics
• Lauren Reid, Associate Professor of Accountancy, Lambert Family Accounting Fellow, and Faculty Senate Executive Committee
• Margaret Taylor, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law