LUCAS VASQUEZ: Hello everybody, I’m your host Lucas Vasquez from the Minnesota Daily, and welcome back to another episode of In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota. 

On March 18, 2025, the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents voted nine-three to approve an updated version of a Resolution Related to Institutional Speech. This resolution provides guidance for when the university has to issue statements regarding matters of public concern and interest.

These changes have been a matter of great controversy among the university’s faculty as the guidelines have been described as both vague and complicated to work with. 

But before I dive into that, it’s first important to understand who the Board of Regents are and what their purpose is. As a college student myself, I was unaware of who and what the regents were and what they actually did. So I decided to do some digging. 

To start off, there are 12 members, and they each serve six-year terms. They are appointed to the Board by the Minnesota legislature, as is directed in the original University Charter. The very first Board of Regents was convened in February of 1851 making them 175 years old. 

To learn more about their daily life and to bring more clarity as to how they serve the U, I interviewed Regent James Farnsworth, who gave me a look into what it means to be a member of the Board and what his journey to becoming a regent was like. 

JAMES FARNSWORTH: In 2019 I had applied to run for the student at large seat, when then Regent Kenyanya was running. And we, you know, had a great time going through the process, learned a lot, met a lot of folks at the legislature. Didn’t end up being elected. Mike Kenyanya then ended up going on and serving in that position for six years. 

And, you know, had a great experience running for the seat, but I kind of went through the whole political process at the Capitol and I didn’t think I’d be doing it again anytime after that. And so in 2021 when there was another round of regional elections and the fourth congressional district seat came up, someone said, “Hey, you should consider applying.” 

And I kind of thought, “Well, I’ve been through the process before,” and I was actually running for St. Paul’s school board at the time. And didn’t, you know, think doing both at the same time made sense. And someone said, “Oh, well, you know, the process, why don’t you just apply anyways?” And I put in my application again to the Regent Candidate Advisory Council, went through the process. 

And ended up getting briefly, you know, knocked out of the official process in the middle when the Joint Higher Education Committee meets. Came back alive on the floor of the Joint Convention where I was nominated and elected. So kind of a whirlwind process. And then have been serving since March 15 of 2021.

VASQUEZ: Farnsworth also mentioned some of the other work he does outside of serving as a regent. 

FARNSWORTH: Outside of that service, because many folks don’t know that being a regent is actually a volunteer job. It’s non-compensated. It’s not a full-time job for folks. So, a lot of regents have been retired in the past, but of course, there’s folks that are still in their careers. So outside of serving on the board, I work full time for the YMCA Center for Youth Voice in a senior program director role. 

We do civic engagement programming for students in grade seven through 12th grade in our core programming. And then we actually do things across the whole state that impacts students in a wide range of grades and ages through our students’ voting program, respectful conversations and other things.

So I work in civic engagement and youth development full-time. Serve on the board in my volunteer capacity. And then I’m involved in some other nonprofits as well.

VASQUEZ: He explained how in terms of structure, the easiest way to understand the Board is to compare it to a K-12 school district’s board, but for the entire University of Minnesota system. It provides oversight for all five campuses. 

Just as a school board hires, evaluates and can dismiss a superintendent, they have the same authority over the university’s president, who is obligated to report to the Board. Additionally, the university’s chief auditor also answers directly to them.

FARNSWORTH: But those are kind of the only two direct reports we have as a Board from a staff perspective. And then there’s all sorts of things in Board of Regions policy, which if anyone’s interested, is accessible through our website, regents.umn.edu, of things that show what’s under the Board’s purview.

So there’s things such as any purchase over $5 million that the university is making goes to the Board. That’s kind of a financial threshold we have. A bunch of different appointment contracts and administration and athletics. We are the final stop on conferring of tenure for faculty members.

We vote on all sorts of other academic policy, real estate transactions, the final budgets for the university we vote on. So that’s obviously a huge responsibility. There’s all sorts of other things that are in Board of Regents policy that dictate how and what comes to the board and when.

And so, we have eight regular Board meetings a year, those are two date  meetings, so committees on Thursday all day, and the Board meeting and some committees on Friday. So that doesn’t sound like a ton, but there’s also a ton of different prep meetings that go into having those board meetings, particularly if you’re in committee leadership.

VASQUEZ: I then asked him since coming on the Board what some of his priorities have been and what he has done to see them through.

FARNSWORTH: I’ve served under three presidents. So I started under President Joan Gable, then she left and we had to bring on, and manage the process of working with an interim president, Jeff Edinger. And then we had the presidential search for Rebecca Cunningham and I was a part of the Presidential Search Advisory Committee.

So, that was, it’s been a huge priority since I’ve been on, is looking at leadership. And, and one of the most important things a board can do is participate in a presidential search hiring process and then onboarding and making sure that president is supported. I’ve also been very much focused on public engagement and accessibility and transparency of the Board. 

And so, you know, I actually really value opportunities like this to be able to talk about our work. Because most people aren’t familiar with the Board. I think sunshine and transparency equals good governance and gives better outcomes. And I think awareness of government entities leads to better outcomes and more accountability. 

And so I’ve been really interested in what are we doing to engage as a board across the system? How can we be talking about our work, making our processes more transparent? Getting feedback and hearing from university community stakeholders and folks from all across the state. Because I, you know, view our role as we are the public governing board of our state’s public land grant R1 institution. 

And so we need to be exercising and modeling what good public governance looks like. And so I’ve been always interested in that and making sure that our processes are good. Some other things, you know, looking at enrollment management, looking at what our new strategic plan is have also been priorities of mine.

VASQUEZ: Farnsworth commented on what he thought about the recent turmoil, everything from the university’s budget to ICE activity on campus, to the teamster strike last semester, and what he thinks about some of the frustrations expressed by student groups and faculty members.

FARNSWORTH: I think that’s a very fair question. And of course, you know, only being able to speak on behalf of myself in this interview. I always wanna make myself available to any group that wants to have conversations, even if they’re gonna be difficult, or even if we may disagree. 

At the beginning when you’re elected to the Board, of course there’s a bunch of onboarding things that happen, and different options and things that you’re working to get set up with the Board office. And so one of those options is you can decide what phone number you put on your regent webpage on the Board website. And so basically since week one, I’ve always had my real cell phone number up on there. I think there’s only a few of us that do that. 

All of our email addresses are always public. We have the Board public comment portal that folks can leave an audio visual, written comments to at any point, at, you know, 365, 24/7, and those get attached to the Board docket. And so I always am very careful in reviewing our correspondence that comes in that way.

VASQUEZ: He then expressed to me his desire of creating a space for public commenting during regent meetings. 

FARNSWORTH: That’s something that I’ve been working on for the last four and a half years on this Board, and have not been able to get a majority of the votes on the Board to support that. Which is unfortunate. I think that, in higher-ed boards, we are not the only university that doesn’t have that. 

But obviously if you look at the Minnesota legislature, any city council, county commission, planning commission, all of that, being able to, as a citizen, as a community member, show up to your seat of government and be heard, I think is a fundamental core value and, and something that we should be striving towards.

And so I believe that there should be built in time for people to be heard during Board meetings when the Board is formally convened in McNamara. We have a lot of meeting disruptions that happen because we don’t have that. Our current Board policy leaves it up to Board leadership to decide who can address the Board, and I don’t think that’s fair.

And that’s not a personal comment towards who’s in Board leadership now. I think that’s just unfair across the board that our leadership, whoever is in those seats, should not be the only ones deciding on behalf of all 12 of us who we get to hear from. So, I’m very sensitive to the feelings from the campus community on that. 

It’s something that from a system standpoint I’m working, you know, will be working towards every day until I’m not on this Board anymore about how we can make our processes more transparent and I will never support something that makes it harder for people’s voices to feel heard. 

VASQUEZ: Despite this, Farnsworth along with eight other members of the Board, approved a ruling that placed limitations on institutional speech here at the U, which has many members of the faculty concerned. I spoke with Michael Gallope, the chair of the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature

MICHAEL GALLOPE: So the institutional speech issue is hugely significant. For decades this institution, the University of Minnesota, alongside many other universities, have survived without any policies about neutrality or institutional speech that starts to regulate how we use the website and so on.

And under those conditions, in the past, sometimes presidents would take a position. During the civil rights era, you had some university presidents speaking in favor of civil rights, and yes, that did have an impact, right? You can go back further. You could look into the 19th century and see that some institutions were pro-slavery, some institutions were against slavery.

There’s a long history of institutions taking positions based in, you know, the expertise of the faculty. And within a certain political context that’s always changing. All of a sudden, we had this new policy in the wake of October 7 that was demanding neutrality, that was demanding restrictions on political statements. 

And this represents a very serious concern for our community because as a public university, not only are we obliged to comply by the First Amendment, which broadly assumes that everyone, including yourself as a student, myself as a faculty member, has First Amendment rights to speak our minds.

And under the assumption that you and I are not seeking to represent the institution, even when something is published in the university newspaper or on a university website, we’ve had those freedoms and we need those freedoms to be able to have those debates.

What this resolution that the regents passed last year did was, in a very broad, vague and quite confusing way, seek to regulate the way in which various groups of faculty and staff spoke to the public. Now, this is a very difficult thing to do because we saw immediately, just weeks after this resolution was passed, was that a series of statements about Israel Palestine were removed from the website. 

And these statements, there were specific requests from people in power legislators and donors to have these statements removed. Now, once you open the door to that kind of censorship, you know, that says, of all the things on the website, everything is okay, but these Israel Palestine statements, I just don’t agree with them and I need them taken down. Once you start doing that, you get into this terrain of discrimination.

VASQUEZ: He went on to comment about a few different examples of the struggles that this causes. He explained that people are wondering why certain statements were taken down, especially since all the statements on the murder of George Floyd are still up online. 

From his perspective, this creates a real problem for people trying to do their jobs and uphold the values of free inquiry, freedom of speech and academic freedom on campus. The issue, he said, is that there’s total confusion about what is actually permitted and what isn’t.

He described the language being used as vague and overly broad, leading to what looks like random acts of censorship. But, as he pointed out, they aren’t random at all; they’re coming from the people in power. The real danger is that this threatens any kind of community discussion on topics that are currently controversial. 

He feels they’ve gotten into a situation where they’re now trying to regulate things simply for being “too political.” And that’s the core of the problem. According to Gallope, no two people in the state of Minnesota are going to agree on exactly what is political and what isn’t. He gave examples: climate change is a political issue to some, but to others, it’s just a fact. Vaccine science is the same way. 

He extended that to topics like structural racism, transgender care or even reproductive health. The point is that, depending on your viewpoint, any of these subjects can be seen as either deeply political or completely non-political. This, he comments, has a direct conflict with First Amendment rights.

GALLOPE: The First Amendment obliges us to allow everybody to speak, and when you disagree, we invite you to speak as well. And with that playbook guaranteed by the First Amendment, we are going to be good as a community. We can disagree and we’ll keep talking and we’ll do it respectfully and with care towards the health of our community. 

But we’re not gonna do something like take stuff off the website because somebody complains. As soon as we start doing that, there really is no justifiable path. And in an era when repression and the risk of fascism is something that is a topic of public concern, it’s scary for many of us to see things being censored. 

So I think the institutional speech policy that the regents did was an example of something that really was overreach. It went beyond that kind of broad, idealistic and benevolent guidance that the regents have historically provided the institution, and started to interfere within our work as faculty and students doing our academic work and having debates and disagreeing about things. 

Once that interference begins it degrades the learning environment. It’s harder for us to speak freely. We are afraid of being, maybe being punished or someone could retaliate against us. It makes it much harder for us to do that work of discussing controversial issues. 

The only way we can solve our social problems is having that open debate. So I think that institutional speech issue was a mistake, and I really think the only solution is to pull it back and give those freedoms back to the faculty so we can establish norms of trust and of free expression that will allow everybody to thrive.

VASQUEZ: He also spoke about another example in which a concerning action was taken after specific statements were made, regarding the conflict between Israel and Palestine.

GALLOPE: I think the first big event was the un-hiring of Professor Raz Segal, who’s an expert in the field of Holocaust studies. This happened in 2024 and he was hired by the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts to run the Center for Holocaust and Genocide studies. And, he had said that Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza. 

And I think it was about a, a little over a week after October 7. And he was talking about a broader, sort of historical pattern of conduct, by the state of Israel in its treatment of Palestinians.

And, in the field of Holocaust and genocide studies, the topic of whether or not what’s happening in Gaza is a genocide is a very legitimate and central question for research inquiry. 

It’s also a question that a center of that kind has to be able to discuss openly. It has to be able to run programming with different kinds of speakers who would be able to, you know, help students, the public, other researchers, be able to grapple with the complexities of international law, the applicability of human rights, and how that impinges upon our understanding of the ethics and morality and the politics of what’s happening in Israel and Palestine. Which has been a massive topic of public concern. 

VASQUEZ: He told me about how there was a pressure campaign to have him unhired. 

GALLOPE: So an offer was extended and that was rescinded after it was already offered. It was rescinded by the Interim President Jeffery Edinger. Which led to a no confidence vote against the president and the provost, Provost Rachel Croson at the time. 

That’s a great example of academic freedom and an institution’s processes failing. There’s a reason, you know, once something like that happens where a group who has a vested interest in a certain point of view on a matter pertaining to foreign policy can influence the hiring outcome, it becomes very difficult for that position, in this case, a center director to continue that work, right? 

So once someone’s been un-hired for expressing a viewpoint that is disfavored, how can then that center go about having an open discussion about genocide? It becomes really difficult, and yet that’s something at a public institution we have to address. 

We do have to address the really challenging topics of genocide, of mass violence, of war, of racism. These are issues that affect our world in very intense ways, and we’re not gonna solve them if our universities don’t have a free hand to be able to engage the challenges head on. 

VASQUEZ: The next professor I spoke with was Jane Kirtley who is the director of the Silha Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law at the Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She told me from an attorney and journalist perspective her take on the issue.

JANE KIRTLEY: As you probably know from reading the various versions of it that have been floating around now for the past year or so, one of the positions that they have taken is that, you know, only the president of the university should be issuing any kind of statements on behalf of the university. 

And that only things that directly pertain to the university should be the subjects of those kinds of statements and the things that do not directly affect that. The university should not issue statements about it, and neither should any kind of unit, center, institute that could be construed as being speaking on behalf of the university. 

And you know, they’ve been trying to say that this is a viewpoint neutral position, that they’re not saying, yes, you can be, you know, pro-Israel, but you can’t be, you know, pro-Palestine or whatever the case is. They say you can’t talk about it at all. 

And I understand where that’s coming from because one of the worst things from a constitutional law perspective that a state institution like the University of Minnesota can do is to engage in viewpoint discrimination. It can’t say, you know, this view is acceptable and this view is not. 

VASQUEZ: Kirtley then commented to me about how this resolution has made it difficult for her to determine how she can issue statements to the public.  

KIRTLEY: So as an example, if I were to, as I’ve sometimes done, write an op-ed for the Star Tribune, that would be okay with them. I mean, it would have my name on it, it would have my affiliation, but they seemingly have accepted the proposition that reasonable people would not construe that as institutional speech.

People seem to think that professors that write things like that are speaking for the university, but the university at least has taken that position. But they don’t want academic units doing it, they don’t want centers like the Silha Center doing it because they think that it would be construed as institutional speech writ large. 

And the problem that I have with that as the person that is directing a center is that in the documents that created our center, it explicitly says that we’re supposed to interact and engage with the public on controversial issues. Again, that are relevant obviously to what we do here, which is study media ethics and media law. 

VASQUEZ: She then pointed out some of the issues with the resolution itself and some of the action she has tried to take. 

KIRTLEY: As soon as I became aware of this, I submitted comments explaining why I thought that this not only was a breach of the contract that created the Silha Center, but also that I thought it involved First Amendment issues. The main ones being that again, because we’re a state institution, the university is subject to the First Amendment, which means that it can’t just arbitrarily stifle or censor speech. 

And that the way the institutional speech resolution was written, it seemed to me to be, and this is again, getting into kind of constitutional law it seemed to be vague and overbroad. And the problems from a constitutional perspective with that is that you run the risk of chilling speech that is protected under the First Amendment. 

Because people are afraid that they’ll cross the line and be writing or saying something that, you know, you don’t wanna allow when in fact maybe you would allow it, but they don’t wanna take a chance.

VASQUEZ: Kirtley also commented on how the administration has struggled to implement the regents ruling because of how vague it is.

KIRTLEY: They don’t seem to have as much of a problem with, you know, me signing onto a brief or the Silha Center signing on as that would, if we posted the brief on our website. It’s OK to link to it, but it shouldn’t be posted there in full. So there are these kind questions about how do you, how do you know whether it’s OK or not? 

Is it OK to do it as long as you don’t tell anybody you’re doing it? And I think that’s, you know, that’s, that’s the thing. And what does, you know, suggests to me is that the people in the administration who are, are struggling with how to implement the region’s resolution don’t quite know how to do that.

VASQUEZ: She expressed how it’s understandable that administrations struggle with implementing the resolution, as something like this has never really happened before. 

KIRTLEY: It only matters because the First Amendment’s at stake. So of course it matters from my view, but I can understand that for some of the regents they just want us to be quiet and shut up because they don’t wanna get complaints from their constituents or from the legislature or from the Trump administration or whatever the case might be. 

Again, my maybe narrower view than some other professors would be that as long as we’re talking about something that is relevant to the center’s work, whatever the center may be, there shouldn’t be any question. There just shouldn’t.

VASQUEZ: Kirtley is also concerned about the process of which comments get attention and which don’t. The provost released on their website a section of frequently asked questions that are meant to help guide faculty and staff on how to move forward with the new ruling. 

She told me that she is concerned about how the process of complaints over certain statements and the determination of what is acceptable and what is not would look like. 

KIRTLEY: The provost would apparently then go to an advisory committee that she wants to create to get their take on it. Which would all be done confidentially, which means it would not be public. And then she would decide whether or not she wanted to pay attention to that or not pay attention to that. 

Well, I see that as really problematic on many, many levels, you know, there’s a concept of due process. And secret proceedings are not due process. And the fact that apparently this is triggered only by an outside complaint or even an inside complaint. I mean, it could be a student complaining, I assume. 

How would I know, how would I be able to defend myself against it? Would I have an opportunity to defend myself against it? I mean, they talk a lot about informal processes, but they don’t say what those are. And I understand, you know, they’re still kind of thinking this through, but I don’t like secret proceedings. 

VASQUEZ: She then told me about what she thought of Farnsworth’s idea of having a space for public comment at regent meetings. 

KIRTLEY: That would be really good. I was surprised to know that there really wasn’t a mechanism to take testimony from the public. I mean, you could submit written comments and I did that. But I’ve heard mixed versions about whether the regents get them, when they get them.

I mean, you were, we were always free to email a regent directly if we chose to, and I did that in some instances. But you still don’t really know if it’s reaching them, if they’re reading it, whether it’s having an impact at all. 

And the fact that if you file your comments through the portal whether they eventually get to the regents in a timely fashion, I mean I think they probably do end up in kind of the record of the meeting but that may be after the fact. 

VASQUEZ: Gallope also thought this would be a good idea. 

GALLOPE: Yes. I fully agree with Regent Farnsworth on this issue. I think he’s exactly right. If you look at the research on protest movements, particularly student protests. One of the main reasons that protests happen in the first place is because there’s no legitimate path for those who have a specific concern to achieve a policy outcome, or to be able to have a platform for advocacy that would allow them to express those concerns.

So if that does not exist, then people tend to go into the realm of protest. And protests, some of them can be more disruptive or less disruptive. But the idea behind protest is that there is some failure of communication.

There is some failure of representation of politics at the institution such that students, community members, faculty, feel silenced about an issue. 

VASQUEZ: So, where does this leave us? We have a Board made up of volunteers who oversee a massive public institution. One of its own members is fighting for more transparency and a formal way for the public to be heard. 

On the other side, we have faculty who feel that the Board’s recent actions, from the un-hiring of a professor to this new, vague institutional speech policy, are not just poor governance, but a direct threat to academic freedom and the First Amendment. 

As a student, I think it’s extremely important to be able to have open and constructive conversations on hard topics. In a classroom setting, this starts with the professor. But if the professor doesn’t feel comfortable breaching these topics either in their research or in their duties as an academic authority, because of discouragement from the Board that governs them. I fear that this apprehension could carry into the classroom. 

This would then, unfortunately, deprive students of conversations that could shape their perspective on some of the world’s biggest debates. All we can really do in times like this is continue to have the courage to speak up for what you believe in, to ask the hard questions and to exercise your constitutional First Amendment rights. 

Thank you for listening. I hope you learned something new. This episode was written by Lucas Vasquez and produced by Ceci Heinen. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, don’t be afraid to reach out at [email protected]. 

My name is Lucas Vasquez, and this has been In The Know.