“Step Into My Office…”

As students, my friends and I spent a frankly unhealthy amount of time thinking about free speech at Exeter. We wondered whether we had too much, whether we had too little. Whether we could earn ourselves more if we tried. Whether the concept existed at all at a private school. We asked who, if anyone, had granted it to us, and sometimes, we asked who was taking it away.But most of the time, we just asked others how they felt about it. In September 2011, I had an incredible conversation with some pro-union Academy employees. It would be putting it lightly to say they felt their views were unwelcome with superiors. We covered those views in this newspaper. Several requested to remain anonymous.Now and then, we proposed topics of discussion. We once asked Exonians for their feelings about a string of recent Academy policies, each of which unambiguously narrowed the scope and extent of free choice for students and faculty on campus. Whether the additional structure would help or hurt was the question. We covered their views in this newspaper, too.And as its Managing Editor, I wound up learning a lot about free speech and how people felt about it here, at Exeter.I learned how careful Exonians were to protect their campus reputations and how personally and professionally important they understood those reputations to be.I learned Exonians felt that even their own views, expressed publicly, might easily jeopardize those reputations.I learned that those reputations often did battle, and that when they did, the arena was usually in the extreme subtleties of a conversation—a certain look in the eye, a firm handshake, a hint of defensiveness in one’s voice.Context mattered. And from everything I can gather, it still does.But what I notice, from reading The Exonian’s latest reportage on free speech, is a funny kind of hypocrisy. I see ignorance of context and a lack of perspective.Let’s start with the lede—the meeting between senior Ella Werthan and CCO Director Betsy Dolan. Ms. Dolan: imagine, for a moment, being Ella. You’ve effectively just challenged the CCO’s adherence to non sibi. When the CCO’s director invites you for a conversation—no matter its stated purpose—what kind of message do you think that sends?It’s easy to see this cartoonishly: the big, scary dean beckoning some pipsqueak new kid into a palatial office, the dean’s feet on the table and a fat cigar wedged between her teeth, the student clutching her books to her chest and trembling. "Step into my office," croons the dean, and we know a verbal spanking is right around the corner.Cartoons are cartoons; reality is reality. But any adult who has worked a day in his or her life knows the subtext of an invitation to a superior’s office. It communicates and reinforces the existence of a power dynamic.This goes for all college counselors, all deans, all campus figures of authority: stop being tone-deaf to these important and obvious realities. I know most of you personally, and I know you’re great people. Your charges are telling you in no unclear terms that they feel intimidated. Answering with, "You’re wrong—we’re so amicable!" is just not a valid response here.It should be clear that I’m not only talking about administrators calling meetings in their offices. This of course applies to decisive-sounding disagreements with your students’ arguments at your Harkness table. It applies to "follow-up" calls to chat about an Op-Ed or an opinion expressed at faculty meeting. All this psychological stuff plays a huge role in shaping the culture of the community in which you live.Likewise, students: stop agreeing to meet these administrators in their offices. Tell them you’d rather meet at D Squared, Swasey or your common room. It won’t make you look combative to suggest an alternative meetup location. Have the conversation on your terms. You have that power. Exercise it.As for the lack of perspective I mentioned: As an alum, I’ve gained a kind of emotional distance from everything here. I still care about free speech at Exeter. But I can’t avoid the thought anymore that the entire conversation about it is just plain misguided.We’re missing the forest for the trees.What I mean: it’s a little frustrating to hear, on one hand, that Exonians feel intimidated by superiors because of their views, and on the other, that the pressures of Exeter may be causing more top eighth-graders to choose Andover today—without thinking that maybe there is really a problem with Exonian culture.I can’t say I felt this way as a student, but maybe students today just feel too "watched over," too vulnerable, too concerned about their reputations—in the eyes of their parents, their peers, their faculty, the future readers of their college applications—to really thrive. And to the extent there’s any student consensus on the topic yet, isn’t this it?So here’s hoping that we can launch the much larger conversation that needs to be had here. It isn’t about free speech, and it definitely isn’t about us versus the smurfs. It’s about the guiding values of this place. It’s about recognizing how context matters in shaping a culture. It’s about "the real business of living." It’s about seeing Harkness as not just a pedagogy, but a philosophy for governing the microcosmic society we’ve all created here.And it’s about non sibi. Duh. 