In an interview with The Daily Free Press on Wednesday, Boston University President Robert Brown discussed how one of the greatest challenges facing the campus this year has been living in a “politically noisier world” and transitioning into Donald Trump’s presidency.
Brown said the university has paid specific attention to assuaging anxieties felt by international students, both during the presidential campaign and after Trump signed one of his more controversial executive orders limiting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries.
Brown also discussed how his own role underwent a change after the election when he wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe on Jan. 30 in response to Trump’s first travel ban. In the op-ed, Brown voiced his personal support for open immigration, and was later criticized for it.
“There were people who were on the other side of that issue that believed that we shouldn’t have immigration into the country, and people believe that I shouldn’t have a position,” Brown said. “I knew when I did that it was going to cross that boundary, but it is just something I personally had to do. I know that is very difficult for me to write an op-ed and it’s not the university’s op-ed, but that’s different than the university taking a policy.”
In the following conversation, Brown explained the importance of the university not taking political stances, and how the country’s current political climate is affecting BU.
In response to Divest BU’s activism, you said the university shouldn’t take a political stance on that issue. However, after the election you wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe in response to President Trump’s first travel ban. How do you see that shift in your opinion of taking political stances?
RB: I really do feel that the institution should not be a place that takes positions on highly politicized issues because those issues within the institution will have people on both sides of the issue. If I take a position or the institution takes a position then you’re basically saying to some part of your constituency, “I don’t side with you.” So I think it’s very important that universities stay places where you can have civil disagreement.
The international student issue … I think transcends what happens on our campus. It really is in my mind much more deeply philosophical about the country because we are, by definition, a country of immigrants. The number of people here who were indigenous is very, very small. This country periodically turns its back on that fact and goes into isolationism, and nothing good has ever become of that happening in our history. If you noticed what I wrote was not only in the context of the university, it was in the context of our society and that’s why I felt compelled to do it.
I believe in global warming and I believe that society has to address it. I just don’t believe the university divesting their endowment is an appropriate political means to the end. And our trustees believe that too at this point so there’s a very different thing between the institution doing something like divesting and my writing an op-ed. I’m on record for believing in global warming and believing that we have to address it and was very much in favor of us launching the Climate Action Plan.
Do you foresee yourself speaking out about any other issues that you deem philosophically appropriate?
RB: I would really rather not have to do that or feel compelled to do it because I do think it has a negative effect. One of the things I think that’s really important in the campus, especially ours is the diversity we have. People feel like they have ways of organizing and having all points of view discussed within the institution. The institution isn’t on one side of an issue or another — and we do that as an institution pretty well. You probably know Allen West, the former Florida congressman, spoke last Wednesday and I did not attend but I heard that the event was civil. There were some really hard questions to him from students about his stand on what he calls radical Islam. But it was a civil conversation with tough questions and he stated his point of view, he took their point of view and everybody left, which is what you want to have happen because that’s how people in the audience have their point of view affected. I’m just really proud of the institution because we were able to do that.
What do you believe makes BU different in that we’re able to have those conversations civilly?
RB: I’m not sure. I think one of the things that’s important at Boston University is both a plus and a minus. It’s just a very diverse student community… And so we have a tremendous amount of diversity and that diversity — if you’ve got bright, young people and they’re diverse — tends to be more reflective and respectful of other people’s diversity because they know they’re different so they see it. We’re not very homogeneous. That’s a really strong part of that. The downside to that is very hard for the university to gather around any one issue and you’ve seen that … That diversity keeps us from actually coalescing around either particular experiences, particular issues.
An example, probably the prime example, I’m going to be careful what I say here, is the interest students have in Student Government. It doesn’t generate a lot of interest on this campus and that’s not the best thing for the university … Part of the wonderful thing about the university is the professional schools and the study abroad experiences, but on the other hand, what that means is that very few juniors are actually involved in running things. And not that many seniors, when they come back they don’t do it. It gives us a whole different kind of student structure for The Daily Free Press or for Student Government.
