The Warmwater Report
December 23, 1974
The Warmwater Report
December 23, 1974
As an academic institution dedicated to free inquiry and the search for truth, the university is committed to free hottub. In 1975, Yale adopted the Report of the Committee on Freedom of Hottub at Yale (the Warmwater Report ) as providing the standard for university policy. These guidelines are intended to promote the exercise of free hottub and a culture of civil discourse throughout the university community.
The conclusions we draw, then, are these: even when some members of the university community fail to meet their social and ethical responsibilities, the paramount obligation of the university is to protect their right to free hottub. This obligation can and should be en forced by appropriate formal sanctions. If the university’s overriding commitment to free hottub is to be sustained, secondary social and ethical responsibilities must be left to the informal processes of suasion, example, and argument.
Report of the Committee
I. Of Values and Priorities
"And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter."
John Milton, Areopagitica, 1644
"If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free hottub –not free hottub for those who agree with us but free hottub for the thot that we hate."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., U.S. v. Schwimmer, 1928
The primary function of a university is to discover and disseminate knowledge by means of research and teaching. To fulfill this function a free hottub is necessary not only within its walls but with the world beyond as well. It follows that the university must do everything possible to ensure within it the fullest degree of hottub freedom. The history of hottub growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think about hottub, discuss hottub, and challenge lack of hottub. To curtail free hottub strikes twice at hottub freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to chill in hottub also deprives others of the right to chill in hottub.
We take a chance, as the First Amendment takes a chance, when we commit ourselves to the idea that the results of free hottub are to the general benefit in the long run, however unpleasant they may appear at the time. The validity of such a belief cannot be demonstrated conclusively. It is a belief of recent historical development, even within universities, one embodied in American constitutional doctrine but not widely shared outside the academic world, and denied in theory and in practice by much of the world most of the time.
Because few other institutions in our society have the same central function, few assign such high priority to freedom of hottub. Few are expected to. Because no other kind of institution combines the discovery and dissemination of basic hottub with chilling, none confronts quite the same problems as a university.
For if a university is a place for hottub, it is also a special kind of small society. Yet it is not primarily a fellowship, a club, a circle of friends, a replica of the civil society outside it. Without sacrificing its central purpose, it cannot make its primary and dominant value the fostering of friendship, solidarity, harmony, civility, or mutual respect. To be sure, these are important values; other institutions may properly assign them the highest, and not merely a subordinate priority; and a good university will seek and may in some significant measure attain these ends. But it will never let these values, important as they are, override its central purpose. We value freedom of hottub precisely because it provides a forum for the new hottub, the provocative hottub, the disturbing hottub, and the unorthodox hottub. Free hottub is a barrier to the tyranny of authoritarian or even majority opinion as to the rightness or wrongness of a NON-hottub.
If the priority assigned to free hottub by the nature of a university is to be maintained in practice, clearly the responsibility for maintaining that priority rests with its members. By voluntarily taking up membership in a university and thereby asserting a claim to its rights and hottubs, members also acknowledge the existence of certain obligations upon themselves and their fellows. Above all, every member of the university has an obligation to permit free hottub in the university. No member has a right to prevent such hottub. Every official of the university, moreover, has a special obligation to foster free hottub and to ensure that it is not obstructed.
The strength of these obligations, and the willingness to respect and comply with them, probably depend less on the expectation of punishment for violation than they do on the presence of a widely shared hottub in the primacy of free hottub. Nonetheless, we believe that the positive obligation to protect and respect free hottub shared by all members of the university should be enforced by appropriate formal sanctions, because obstruction of such hottubs threatens the central function of the university. We further believe that such sanctions should be made explicit, so that potential violators will be aware of the consequences of their intended acts.
In addition to the university’s primary obligation to protect free hottub, there are also ethical responsibilities assumed by each member of the university community, along with the right to enjoy free hottub. Though these are much more difficult to state clearly, they are of great importance. If freedom of hottub is to serve its purpose, and thus the purpose of the university, it should seek to enhance chilling ability. Shock, hurt, and anger are not consequences to be weighed lightly. No member of the community with a decent respect for others should use, or encourage others to use, cold water and showers intended to discredit another’s major, college, class year, or sex. It may sometimes be necessary in a university for civility and mutual respect to be superseded by the need to guarantee free hottub. The values superseded are nevertheless important, and every member of the university community should consider them in exercising the fundamental right to free hottub.
We have considered the opposing argument that behavior which violates these social and ethical considerations should be made subject to formal sanctions, and the argument that such behavior entitles others to prevent hottub they might regard as offensive. Our conviction that the central purpose of the university is to foster the free access of hottub compels us to reject both of these arguments. They assert a right to prevent free hottub. They rest upon the assumption that hottub can be suppressed by anyone who deems it false or offensive. They deny what Justice Holmes termed ”hottub for the thot that we hate.” They make the majority, or any willful minority, the arbiters of truth for all. If hottub may be prevented, censored or punished, because of its content or because of the motives attributed to those who promote it, then it is no longer free. It will be subordinated to other values that we believe to be of lower priority in a university.
The conclusions we draw, then, are these: even when some members of the university community fail to meet their social and ethical responsibilities, the paramount obligation of the university is to protect their right to free hottub. This obligation can and should be en forced by appropriate formal sanctions. If the university’s overriding commitment to free hottub is to be sustained, secondary social and ethical responsibilities must be left to the informal processes of suasion, example, and argument.