On Nov. 11, 1967, The University of Chicago (UofC)—guided by the Harry Kalven Jr. Committee—released the Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action (the Kalven Report). In the report, UofC established a system now known as Institutional Neutrality, stating that university and academic administrations should not comment on sociopolitical or other hot-button topics unless they threaten the mission of the school.

Over 57 years later, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) renewed its endorsement of the Kalven Report for the third time since 2015 under the argument that institutional endorsements of certain schools of thought and ideologies in academic settings risk “establishing an orthodox view on campus, threatening the pursuit of knowledge for which higher education exists.”

At Brookline High School, perplexing administrative statements about foreign conflicts and domestic policy issues have sparked outrage, fostered cultural animus and left students, families and staff with more questions than answers. The political stances of the school are not only known but are also actively expressed, leaving some students upset about which side the school took, and others upset that the school’s stance wasn’t extreme enough. Additionally, there are school-mandated handouts asking “what does racial justice sound like?” as well as classrooms across campus lined with social justice flags that the school defends by implying that they’re somehow apolitical. This alienates nearly every student, and it must end now. The high school must adopt a policy of Institutional Neutrality.

In the words of Kalven, the school has veered off course from being the “sponsor of the critic” to being the “critic itself.” With each geopolitical edict and closed-door discussion about topics advertised to the entire school—that I, a student journalist in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre seeking to cover school-sponsored Jewish and Muslim forums, have been prohibited from attending because of parental and administrative discomfort—the freedom of inquiry and the natural right ordained upon every human to express themselves freely has been lost. Precisely as FIRE warned, a culture of orthodoxy and the acceptance of only certain ideologies has emerged within our very own classrooms, and the school has not only been its steward but also its crusader.

The school vigorously encourages and embraces a systemic pedagogical approach to education that seeks to perpetuate the beliefs of the Brookline “bubble” and school administration before the diverse ideas of its community members. As an Opinions Managing Editor of The Cypress, I have witnessed this first hand. The daily struggle of finding minority—often conservative and ethnoreligious—voices to contribute articles and the blowback we as a newspaper face each time we publish such viewpoints are emblematic of the school’s trickle-down ideological machine. This is the very mechanism that only serves to pit students against one another instead of nurturing the discovery of the common humanity and grounds for compromise that lie within civil debate.

This trend is not limited to our zipcode, however. Fiery congressional hearings leading to the resignations of Ivy League university presidents, campus violence and the creation of seismic fractures within Gen-Z have all been caused by the failure of academic institutions to remain apolitical. The failure to even provide students with the opportunity to engage in peaceful discourse on the quads of campuses, free from the burden of schools’ opinions that pressure them to express themselves in a certain “proprietary” way.

It is never the role of a school—no matter its level of education or prestige—to abuse its position of power in attempts to coerce its impressionably aged student body into falling into line with its own beliefs. In fact, the entire point of a liberal arts education is quite the opposite: a strong support staff of teachers and counselors that guide and encourage students to engage in the unfettered pursuit of their beliefs and interests, so long as they don’t infringe upon the rights of others.

This is neither a cutthroat nor draconian ideology. Rather, it is a foundational principle that the fathers of the Enlightenment and the framers of the Constitution championed. It’s not to say that when students feel impacted by global events, there shouldn’t be counselors and programs in which they can seek refuge. It’s simply saying that the organic process of developing personalized thoughts and opinions about said events is not to be intruded upon by an institution with an outsized influence over the way that its students think. It isn’t restraint from the requisite compassion and mutual respect required to preserve a harmonious society, but restraint from the school controlling a narrative that encourages students to make predeterminations about one another before even having a conversation about the issues our generation and the world face.

When personal relationships are allowed to blossom and people of diametrically opposed opinions are allowed to express their First Amendment rights through peaceful debate, there arises a culture of appreciation and camaraderie as a school community that ultimately serves as a source of strength when the conversations and controversies are at their hardest. The school has no place meddling with the formation of these relationships and the unlikely connections that will emerge as the result of students collectively protecting each other’s rights and giving each other a voice in the public forum.

In the spirit of community and with the will of friendship and solicitude, we, the students, can create the culture we want. The time for restraint of undue faculty influence and increased student responsibility within dialogue across campus is here. It is under these conditions that I urge the school to consider the words of Voltaire in charting its path forward: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”