May Day Conference on Free Inquiry
UC Berkeley · A Conference on the Future of the University
May Day Conference on Free Inquiry
Scholars and university leaders gathered to ask how higher education can defend free inquiry while rebuilding public trust.
May 1, 2025
About the Conference
The conference began from a shared concern: free inquiry was under pressure from political control outside universities and ideological conformity within them. Participants agreed on the stakes, but not always on the causes or remedies.
Across a keynote and three panels, the discussion moved from internal reform to political threats and, finally, to the work of earning public trust.
The central tension was not whether universities should be defended, but how defense and self-correction must proceed together.
- What is to be done? Defend autonomy while undertaking credible reform.
- What should be salvaged? Can DEI be reformed, redirected, or dismantled?
- How should universities resist? Where should universities draw their red lines?
- How can trust be rebuilt? How can universities earn legitimacy through their work?
Keynote · Steven Brint, UC Riverside
In Defense of Free Inquiry: What Is to Be Done?
Brint framed the day’s central challenge: resisting political overreach while undertaking credible reform.
Brint described a two-front crisis: coercive political intervention and universities’ own drift from their academic mission. He called for collective resistance alongside reforms to bureaucracy, teaching, contested programs, and the public explanation of universities’ value.
Internal Reform
What Should We Salvage from the DEI Era?
The first panel made the conference’s disagreements visible—and productive.
Thompson argued that DEI bureaucracy and ideological expectations had harmed candor and faculty governance. Soucek defended diversity as part of UC’s mission, while Ligon distinguished genuine diversity from bureaucratic proxies. Their debate centered on whether legitimate goals can be pursued without rewarding prescribed beliefs.
Panelists: Ethan Ligon, Brian Soucek, and Abigail Thompson
Moderator: Richard Sander
Can inclusion be protected without turning a contested political program into an academic test?
External Pressure
The Escalating Political Threats to Free Inquiry
The second panel asked what autonomy requires when political pressure moves from criticism to control.
Gailmard examined whether universities are targeted for sustaining dissent or because they lost a reputation for impartiality. Ginsburg urged clear red lines and stronger norms of disagreement, while Friedman documented the rise of legislative controls over curricula and faculty. The panel paired legal resistance with internal reform.
Panelists: Jonathan Friedman, Sean Gailmard, and Tom Ginsburg
Moderator: Chris Hoofnagle
How can universities resist political control without denying the failures that made control politically attractive?
Public Trust
Responding to the Threats and Restoring Public Trust
The final panel moved from diagnosis toward the daily work of earning legitimacy.
Diermeier called for mission clarity and institutional restraint. Dreger argued that trust is built through teaching and local engagement, while Rosenberg focused on cost, admissions, and elite universities’ weak community ties. All agreed that trust must be earned through practice, not messaging.
Panelists: Daniel Diermeier, Alice Dreger, and Brian Rosenberg
Moderator: Daniel Sargent
What would universities look like if they treated trust as something to earn locally rather than claim nationally?
From Conference to Institution
The conversation did not end in the room
Abigail Thompson closed by returning to the university’s central mission: pursuing truth and transmitting knowledge through open disagreement.
The conversations continued that afternoon and helped catalyze UCIFI: a systemwide faculty organization devoted to protecting open inquiry and advancing serious university reform. The conference was hosted at UC Berkeley and sponsored by the Berkeley Liberty Initiative.