Last week, Senior Vice President and Dean for Student Affairs Jim Hoppe shared updates to the College’s policies on property use, freedom of expression and protests on campus following committee recommendations.

The College claims that it “firmly believes that the free exchange of ideas is essential to the pursuit of knowledge and the development of critical thinking.” It also asserts that “the ability to express diverse viewpoints, including unpopular or controversial ones, is fundamental to our educational mission,” but the new policies do not reflect these sentiments. The College cannot preach a commitment to the “free exchange of ideas” while limiting avenues to do so.

Administrators have granted themselves the ability to “establish reasonable limits on the time, place and manner of expression” carried out by students, faculty and staff. This language does not befit an academic institution that values open intellectual discourse. Rather, it implies that only College-sanctioned dialogue is constructive.

The administration can now choose when, where and how students express themselves. Constraining the physical space that students take up discourages students from voicing their opinions. Taking up air in a room is how students question their own beliefs and those of others, ultimately engaging in intellectualism. This contradicts the College’s commitment to create “a moral environment, free of fear and intimidation, and where differences can flourish.”

The new policy is not a matter of civil protection. If a protest or other form of expression truly violated another’s rights through discrimination and harassment, there are already frameworks in place for appropriate action and discipline. Rather, this is the institution’s attempt to protect itself by shying away from the oft-uncomfortable free exchange of ideas inherent to a liberal arts education.

The Freedom of Expression and On-Campus Protests and Demonstrations policy states that student protests cannot “disrupt operations” of the College. What is a protest if not a disruption?  Another ambiguity is found in the imposition of a “reasonable limit” to the “the time, place, and manner of expression” of student demonstrations. The interpretation of what is reasonable or what constitutes a disruption is not obvious.

Much of the verbiage within these new policies is extremely vague, privileging institutional power over students’ freedom of expression. The College can easily manipulate ambiguous language, leading to contradicting interpretations and dispute.

The role of the College in the public realm is undergoing a sea change. With these new policies, the institution has appointed itself judge of which voices are heard and how they are heard. This opens the door to institutional overreach that can and will stifle student, faculty and staff freedom of expression.

This shift did not come from nowhere. Colleges and universities face a new level of political pressure, and Bowdoin is one of many that are responding by taking more control over free expression. With this response, administrators signal a fear of the consequences of campus dialogue, and they spread that fear by threatening those who rock the boat—we hope that student journalism is not next. This may be the popular route, but it is not the right one.

Throughout its history, the academy has consistently been a locus of social movements, new and provocative thought and contentious debate. This is not four years of boarding school (or another four years, for some of us). If those who lead the institution are no longer comfortable with that role, both the social movements and the academy will suffer from the loss of the other. We hope you dare to continue demonstrating, protesting and expressing to preserve their union.

This editorial represents the majority opinion of the Editorial Board, which is composed of Julia Dickinson, Abdullah Hashimi, Aleena Nasruddin, John Schubert, Catalina Escobedo and Caitlin Panicker.